In Through The Out Door
by LexLuthor13
Summary: post-Secret Invasion AU: Robert Reynolds had retreated from his public life as the enigmatic Sentry, to find something he wasn't sure he'd lost. For a while it was nice. He was happy. That was when the voices came back.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: **_What follows is a post-positive if you will. Post in the sense that it is a highly fictionalized rendering of the aftermath of Secret Invasion, which by now has yet to happen in the Marvel Universe proper, and positive in the sense that its hero and main focus does have good things happen to him, even if the benefits aren't awlays clear at first, and indeed opaque until almost too late to see. What I've done is go into this story with a few basic assumptions about the state of the MU, the state of nature (paging Thomas Hobbes), and a few other things: a little bit of Calvinist predestination theology and the utterly Lutheran idea of sola fidei--as well as the idea, which Bob personifies so well, that it's exceedingly difficult for a man, for any man, to get over his past--and that sometimes he doesn't, and sometimes that's not altogether bad._

_I've thus hybridized (bastardized) the playout of __Secret Invasion, and rather "gone from there." This latest installment finds us retreading familiar ground--the Marvel Universe and Robert Reynolds, The Sentry--as well as some new ground--romance, different from what I suppose is my usual downtrodden fatalism. Read through it and let me know what you think, like, or don't. And perhaps, by the time we're all said and done, the title, "In Through the Out Door," which is admittedly cribbed from Zeppelin, will make some sense to you--especially as you follow Bob's efforts to reconstruct his perceived failure of a life. Perceived, dear readers. Always perceived._

_Happy reading._

* * *

It started with a flash in the sky, and an invasion that escaped the notice of Earth's Mightiest until it was too late to do anything but defend. 

Alien beings intent on taking this world for their own stormed out of the heavens and started shooting. The ones that weren't on the frontlines were lucky. When it was over, New York was slightly more ruined than it had been under the Hulk's one-man war. The Avengers had unified, however briefly, to combat the threat, and when it was done they promptly resumed their old hostilities. Everyone blamed everyone else for not seeing the gravity of the situation sooner, for the deaths on every side of the equation.

For not doing 'enough.'

They blamed everyone, and nothing continued to get done. The world stagnated. Earth's Mightiest continued to stagnate. Even in the face of a massive threat from an alien power—and conquering that threat—they remained divided.

United by their distrust and their hatred. And how the whole thing had ended up

Nick Fury returned and took SHIELD back from the doldrums in which it had laid even before his departure. When the truth about Maria Hill became painfully clear, he put her back where she belonged.

Tony Stark seemed to come out on top of everything. The Initiative, the Registration Act…Tony had it all planned out and it was only afterwards, when the enemy had been neutralized, that he began to find redemption. Such as it was. There are still people that don't trust him, and I suspect they need to get over themselves.

No one suspected Billy Kaplan's rage—even when the enemy's champion had left his lover to die on the steps of the Baxter Building. When Billy took his anger out on people that deserved it, and almost single-handedly won us the war…no one judged him.

Everyone suspected Jessica Drew's treachery, but we didn't know how deep, and to whom it ran, until the very end.

It was an old-fashioned battle, fought with old-fashioned techniques over an old-fashioned objective. The enemy wanted this planet and they were stopping at nothing to get it. They had infiltrated and impersonated select heroes for years prior to the formal declaration of their intentions. And in our collective blindness we paid the clues, the subtleties in the world around us, no heed. We kept focusing on the trees for the forest.

Then Reed Richards, as always, devised a characteristic ace in the hole. He was the first one of us to beat them, and he was the one they wanted. When he strolled into their flagship alone, and strode back out an hour later with the thing aflame behind him, it seemed somehow characteristic and frightening at the same time. It made sense to everyone that he should beat them again.

And as quickly as it began, it ended.

They had struck at those nearest and dearest to us, and we struck back like nothing I've ever seen before.

When that happened, I left.

I just left.

* * *

**_Continued... _**


	2. Out

"I'm not going to talk about this anymore, Nick."

"I understand that, I just want to be sure you know what you're doing."

"You think I'm not in control of my own life?"

"No. Just saying…you have a history with rash decisions."

He slammed the now-empty coffee mug on the table and gave Fury a look of death. One of those annoyed librarian, over the rim of his glasses looks. He let out a breath slowly, exhausted, and clenched his teeth.

"You know that's just like you, Nick. You've always doubted my power—"

"When Electro blew the Raft wide open, I was hiding in bunkers in North Dakota. S don't tell me what I know and don't know, Bob, because I wasn't even around then."

"Oh but you knew, Nick. You know about everything."

Fury tamped the cigar out in the ashtray and blew smoke out through his nostrils. Returned the look of death.

"You're not afraid of me, Bob, I get that. I don't care. Really. I also understand that you're not afraid of anything anymore, and about that I really don't care either. You beat the hell out of Banner a couple of months ago and suddenly you're not a timid little kitten anymore. I get it. I don't like it, but I get it."

Reynolds was getting irritated. For once. He said, "You just don't like it when you get a dose of your own medicine, Nick. Tell me what you're really thinking now."

Fury flicked the cigar away and leaned forward. His voice was deep and powerful and covert angry. "I want to know just what the hell you think you're doing. You think dropping your goddamn problems is going to make your life easier? You think you can outrun the world, Bob?"

"No," he said simply. "I'm making your life easier. Removing myself from the situation is the only way."

"We've heard that one before," Fury said and blew out more smoke. "But since I don't seem to get it, explain it to me till I do."

Bob thought about watering down the truth. He stared around the bistro for a moment before committing. "I'm tired of it, Nick. Can't that be enough for you?"

"No. You think leaving is the right thing to do?" Fury was unimpressed.

Bob looked at him disdainfully. "I'm not fasting in the arctic if that's what you mean."

Fury had to smile at that. "Then what are you doing?"

"I'm leaving. The Watchtower is under lock and key. CLOC is property of Reed Richards for the foreseeable future."

"And Stark?" Fury's eyebrow peaked.

"Tony understands. Which leaves us only with you, Nick. Why did you call me here?"

"The bistro's nice enough," Fury said and looked around as if casing the place—a little hole in the wall coffee and donut shop in the middle of Chelsea. "I know the owner. We go way back."

"Commandos?"

Fury shook his head, and said, "I wanted to see for myself."

"See what?" Bob asked and tried to play nonplussed.

Fury nodded and said, "I wanted to see just what it was that would make Robert Reynolds, the great and powerful Sentry, shake in his boots and decide to leave the world behind."

"I have my reasons, Nick. Everyone's understood this but you. Why do you keep hammering the issue?" He waited for a response.

Fury tamped his cigar in the tray again and took a long inhalation. Blew it out his nose. His remaining eye looked at Bob unapologetically. For a moment, Bob almost felt ashamed that Fury, of all people, was doubting him.

Everyone doubted him.

A few months ago, he supposed, that would have just made things worse and caused him to run away. Again.

But, after the Hulk…

_You made a promise to yourself, Sentry. You're going to face your problems on your terms in your time. Saving the world on an hourly basis doesn't help. Doesn't give you the mental latitude you need to even begin to work through these things. Think of Dr Worth._

_He's been recommending you take time for yourself for the past two years. Shouldn't that be time you owe yourself, especially since no one's around anymore to hold you back?_

_Bruce, in government custody._

_Steve, dead._

_Lindy…_

Bob's jaw clenched at the thought. Out of all the things that had happened in the past few months, Bob had rather escaped presence in it all. He hadn't caught Cloak's teleportation field when Cap's Secret Avengers broke out of the Negative Zone. He'd even missed Steve's assassination, such as it was. He'd been out of the country during the funeral, and it took a month of dialogue with Namor to even see the casket.

To give his last goodbyes.

Bob remembered Fury's perturbed expression staring at him. The anger became a two way street when the silence became unbearable, and Bob recalled Fury still hadn't answered the question.

When none came, Bob snapped. An errant arm threw the empty coffee mug across the room. It met a chalk-scrawled brick wall with no resistance and shattered into a thousand smaller bits of itself. The barista across the room shrunk a bit when Bob rose from his chair and started to glow yellow.

Fury sat back in his chair and lit another cigar. It was illegal, but no cop in three states would've arrested Fury. For his own part, he felt somehow entitled to the smoke.

"Power down," Fury said and glanced around. He didn't want to make a scene. More quietly: "You think you can solve your problems by running, Bob? No one beats an army by facing the opposite direction. No one. You put on your man pants and face the goddamn world, Bob."

Fury's voice kept its anger. He was genuinely upset that Bob was leaving. He genuinely knew Bob would carry through with it. He desperately wanted it not to happen. But then, Nick Fury had never really known a light touch. The byproduct of a thousand suns under Uncle Sam and the Howling Commandos had given him a demeanor just beyond gruff. It translated to militaristic arrogance to his detractors, and tough love to his allies. In all instances, Colonel Fury nevertheless had no tolerance for quitters. That he saw Bob Reynolds as one of those quitters...pissed him off.

Robert Reynolds unclenched his jaw and sat. Slowly. He didn't glow anymore.

"I'm done, Nick," he said wearily. "I'm just…I'm done."

Fury's lips curled in halfhearted disgust. "Done," he said and sounded offended by hearing the word. "You let yourself be done, Bob. You gave up the race when the going got rough. You didn't learn a thing from Steve. Did you?"

Bob looked back at Fury. His eyes blackened.

Fury went on: "That's the Bob Reynolds the world has come to know. Power of a million exploding suns, and afraid to get the goddamn morning mail. You're running from your life because you think you can't handle it. Just like you always did."

They locked eyes.

A moment later, Bob stood up from the table, forcing the chair to slide back and fall over on its side.

Then he was gone.

One of the baristas came over to upright the chair, and Fury ordered another coffee. Stubbed the cigar out in the ashtray, and said, in characteristic guttural: "Damn it."

* * *

Bob didn't sleep that night.

He spent the time in a low hover above the planet.

He didn't feel the cold. Didn't feel any heat, either. Except for the very obvious fact that he wasn't breathing—and didn't really need to—the fact that he was ten miles above the surface of the earth meant nothing to him.

He exhaled slightly and watched the vapor crystallize and shatter.

Space, he thought and pricked up an eyebrow. One of those things he'd never get used to, no matter how hard he tried, or how long he'd had these stupid little powers that allowed him to be up here and not die.

It was just another place to go. Another place to be. Another place to sit, and wait for something that would never come.

He missed Lindy.

_No, that's not entirely accurate. How can you miss her when you understand completely what happened to her and why it happened? And you do understand. Don't you? Just in case we're not clear on this matter.  
_

_You couldn't save her, Sentry. She was gone a long time before…_

_A long time ago._

But things were different, too, a long time ago. After the powers came to him, and before the Sentry manifested those. She'd been happy. He'd been happy. It was magic, and after a while and some admittedly minor strongarming? She'd said yes.

He had to smile at that.

She'd said yes. He'd asked her to marry him. And she'd said yes. By God, she'd said yes. He couldn't have guessed it in a million years. But, that was Lindy's great mystery. She was a hard one to predict. That's what he'd loved about her. He was drawn to that mystery, perhaps partially out of a messiah complex.

They were two different people. Bob, appointed and maybe even a little obsessive-compulsive. Lindy, free and whimsical; delightfully so. She was…different. And he relished that.

They were always close. And always so far. Two icebergs was the old symbolism Bob'd used. Two icebergs. Barely capping the oceans and hiding infinitely more mysteries beneath calm waters.

He smiled.

A tear formed at the edge of his eye. In the airless void, it froze and shattered into its tiny billions.

He started to descend to the earth, and felt slightly deflated. And couldn't recall why it was he wanted to leave.

_To regain your sense of self, Sentry. To find Bob Reynolds again. And to see, just maybe, if there's a place for you in this world. And if not…_

_Optimism, Sentry._

If there was no place for him, he would make one.

He accelerated and felt the heat of friction against his face.

He could live with that.

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	3. Settlement

The sun crested over Manhattan.

In the morning cold of a New York October, Bob lowered to the deck—the Baxter Building's roof. Professor Richards was already waiting for him, wearing a characteristically casual expression. His hair fluttered slightly in the breeze, and for six in the morning, and despite himself, Bob frowned, his brow furrowing.

_Reed looks…old._

Mister Fantastic. Reed Richards. In the ocean-blue uniform of the Fantastic Four.

Richards wiped a wisp of hair away and cleared his forehead. Extended a gloved hand, which Bob promptly met and shook.

"Bob," Richards said warmly.

"Morning, Reed. "Do you always wear the jumpsuit?"

Reed smiled and started to walk toward the lift. "Only during business. And it's more of a uniform."

"And this is business?"

"Well, yes." Typical Reed-hiding-something. They stepped into the lift, and as stainless steel cylindrical doors closed around the duo, Richards spoke again. "I got a lovely call from Nick Fury just as I was laying down to bed last night."

"Here it comes," Bob muttered.

"He knew you were stopping here anyway, so he asked me a favor."

Bob looked at Richards, and the professor held his gaze. Bob eyes narrowed a bit and his lips turned down, mildly unamused. "He asked you to tell me to stay. Didn't he?"

The lift pinged once, and the doors slid open, revealing Reed's lab.

"Yes," Richards said and stepped out. "The kitchen is through here. Coffee?"

Bob nodded and started walking at Richards' side. "And?"

"I told him no promises. I told him I couldn't make you stay, but I could at least talk to you."

"The same courtesy I gave him," Bob said and poured his own coffee.

"Look, Bob, I'm on your side. I didn't want it to come to this—"

Bob sighed, angry, and set the carafe back on the counter with a clang. He looked at Bob and his jaw was clenched. "Let me ask you a question, Reed. If you could just…leave this behind for a little bit. Would you?"

Richards stalled. He looked at Bob, and then away, poured his coffee and stirred the sugar in slowly. Turned around and sat the mug on the table, then sat. His brow furrowed as he thought through his response.

"Reed," Bob insisted.

"No."

Bob reclined in his seat. "No?"

"No," Richards said and finally managed to look Bob in the eyes. He seemed troubled by the proposition. "We, Sue and I, we have roots here. It…wouldn't be feasible."

Bob drew a deep breath and let it go. Took another sip of his coffee.

"I understand," he said. It sounded flat.

"You always did," Richards said. And after a moment: "Is that what this is about? You're trying to prove yourself, Bob? To whom? If it is about that, you needn't worry. You've proven yourself a hundred times over."

"It was never about proving anything to anyone." Bob finished off the coffee with a final, deep, swig. "It was about helping people. Making something positive out of something that's only ever given me trouble."

Richards waited a moment. "Is that what you think happened?"

Bob looked at Richards and rolled his eyes. "What happened is that I made a stupid mistake in college and it hasn't stopped fucking up my life ever since."

Richards thought about it. "We all make mistakes, Bob."

"You and Peter a-and Murdock can still save people, Reed. But I can't. Every time I use my power it's like a bull in a china shop. And after fighting Bruce…it…"

Reed waited.

"It just doesn't matter anymore. And I'm tired of feeling like more than I am."

"But you are," Richards said. "You're more than any of us. That sounds like a compliment but it's the truth. You've done things and gone places even I can only dream of." More quietly: "And the only person that's beating you up about what you do and the choices you've made…is you."

Bob leaned against the counter and sighed deep. "Fighting Bruce all those months ago taught me to get over the last bit of fear I had about my own power, Reed. I was afraid for too long now that any use of my power is dangerous. It's a horrible thing to say…but beating the hell out of Bruce…that fight…it felt good. It felt good to finally use that power."

"So you've said," Richards reasoned. "What does it have to do with you taking up a civilian life?"

"It's an acceptable way to go out," Bob said and meant it. "I don't think I could do it again. Using all that power…showed me that I am in control. Now I want to prove it to myself."

"Self assurance?"

Bob nodded. Said, more dismal, "Anyway, now that Lindy's gone, there's no reason to stay here."

Richards sat back in his chair and eyed the half-empty coffee mug. He was silent for a long moment. Thinking through the situation. He scratched his head and looked back at Bob.

"Can I ask how long you'll be gone?"

"For the forseeable future."

"Where will you go?" Richards looked up, and his features appeared more weathered than usual. _He's troubled too, Sentry. He doesn't want you to leave—probably because he thinks like Fury does. That if you leave, the world will suddenly go to hell. Reed's one of your best friends. Would you want to make him unduly stressed for no good reason?_

_This is a good reason. He should understand._

Standing, Bob said, "Somewhere…where I can work on these problems on my own terms, and try to wean myself off of therapy and self-help books."

"A self-imposed exile," Richards reasoned.

Bob nodded. "I'll be back. When things get a little clearer."

Then he was gone.

Richards sat at the table for another hour, until Sue strolled in, still wearing her nightie, bearing all the trappings of the recently-asleep. She yawned and wiped a strand of hair from her face.

"What is it, honey?"

He turned slowly to look at his wife, pouring her own coffee and starting in on a cruller. His head cocked to one side and his eyes narrowed. He took the coffee mug she offered him in one hand, and sipped from it reflexively.

He shook his head.

"Nothing."

* * *

Bob had scouted out locations for weeks before leaving. California was too far, and too vibrant—he wanted to get away from the noise. Wyoming was undesirable, too natural. They were two ends of the spectrum, and he had decided on something middling. A compromise. His cabin in Vermont—the one he had occupied after Lindy died and during the Hulk's rampage—he had sold off.

He'd sold off most things. Not necessarily to cover expenses—he had precious few of those—but to shore up his own coffers.

Bob had tossed around the idea of going completely off the grid. With advanced physiology, even his, such as it was, a drifter's life as equally untenable.

He paid a visit to Citibank—he had set up twin savings accounts with Lindy there the day before they got married—and merely closed out his account. And Lindy's. The twin accounts were well stocked with twenty years of fastidious and constant input. Lindy's sizeable life insurance policy—her overbearing mother had insisted on it—had made her rich even in death.

All told, Bob left the island that afternoon with slightly less than a million. The small fortune he'd invested in Stark Enterprises, which he made sure he would still receive even as he withdrew from the world of costumed avengers, gave him an extra seven-hundred thousand.

He used twenty dollars of the money on a haircut at some hole in the wall barber in Hoboken, and another forty-two dollars on a suitcase in which he could store the bonds and the bundled cash. It seemed too whimsical of an idea to pass up, even for Bob's happily Spartan mind.

Another twenty-two thousand went to one of the new model Mustangs. Gunmetal grey. He'd spent less than an hour in the dealership.

Six hours later, Robert Reynolds was already on the far side of Philadelphia.

The irony wasn't lost on him. He could have simply flown out of Manhattan as The Sentry, gallantly soaring on to his next engagement or fight with some intergalactic conqueror. And he felt minutely remorseful about collecting, hoarding really, such large amounts of money. Up and leaving his life, really. Then he thought about Bruce. And Lindy.

_You've got to remember that there's no one left now, Bob. The rest of them seemed to get along just fine when you were gone before—they'll be fine this time, too._

He pulled off to the side somewhere in Western Pennsylvania.

The sun beat down on him and reflected brightly, obnoxiously, off the Mustang's hood. The lingering breeze didn't bother him, but he pulled the jacket tight and close as a reflex. He'd pulled a road map out of the Mustang's center console as he got out, and now spread it out on the hood of the car.

Staring at it for a leisurely while, and every now and again sipping from a bottle of Aquafina, he drew a deep breath. His shoulders slumped and he put both hands on the hood, as if to give the map a focused read.

What happened next was strangely remote, almost mechanical in the way it suddenly manifested itself. Even so, Bob welcomed it. It was something different. And it made him feel different.

Fulfillment. As if such a thing could be simply switched on and off. From something as simple as pondering which road to take. A simple and stupidly symbolic thing to do, and think. The choice was entirely in his hands. Up ahead there was a cloverleaf interchange. He could literally go any direction he wanted.

He chuckled at the symbolism. Took another drink of water and went back to the map.

_Welcome to your new life, Bob_, he swore he heard the voices say.

For once they didn't seem too venomous.

He settled on Ohio.

There were some secluded areas in western Ohio—as far as secluded went, anyway, in a state bisected diagonally by three major cities. He couldn't escape technology or civilization proper, and that wasn't really his intent. He merely wanted a swath of land to call home. Something that he could restructure in his own way. Something that didn't stand atop Tony Stark's phallic and indulgent architecture in the middle of Midtown.

He told the realtors in Columbus as much. In three days, the realtor, a rather portly man named Bauer, had something for him.

"I mean, its west of here," Bauer said and scratched his nose. He seemed unduly flustered as he flipped through the listing and title deeds. "Springfield, thereabouts. Two-story colonial, uh…one and a half baths. Four bedrooms. Not furnished."

"That's not a problem," Bob had said warmly. "I'm in the market, John. You know I'll take whatever you have."

"You…don't want to take a look at her?"

Bob waved a lazy hand. "Well, the portfolio you have on the place seems pretty accurate." After a moment: "I trust your judgment."

Bauer looked at him, the apprehension still there. "Sure," he said awkwardly. "Sure, whatever you want, Bob." Bauer had taken to talking with his hands, and moved them reflexively, in a jerking up and down motion, every few seconds. "You…you're sure about this?"

Bob was, more than anything, amused by the whole enterprise of buying a home, and even more so by John Bauer's absolutely flummoxed demeanor. He chortled, partly to calm Bauer's nerves, and leaned forward. Affably, he said, "Look. I'm glad the credit check came back okay. It means my late wife wasn't too reckless with the checkbook. And I told you earlier, John, it'll be fine. The price is fine. The location is ideal. I mean, I'm not writing you a blank check here, I know, but I know what I like. This is it."

"Uh huh," Bauer nodded. Sweat beaded on his balding head.

"So when can I have it?" Bob's question was genuine, as was his gaze. He wanted this. He had long since made up his mind on the subject.

Bauer's eyes lit up. A sale! He launched off the edge of the desk, against which he had been leaning lazily, and threw himself into the leather chair behind his desk. He gave cursory glances to indiscriminate papers strewn about his desktop, and looked back at Bob a moment later.

"Today," Bauer said. He started dialing a long sequence in the phone. "You know, I'll put you in touch with the regional office there. When you get into town, stop by and they'll take you in. I'll let em know you're coming."

Bob stood and offered his hand for Bauer to shake. "Thank you," he said and meant it. "You didn't disappoint." The reasoning was thin, Bob knew, but instilled confidence nonetheless. And he wanted to be a gracious buyer, after all.

Bauer smiled and shook Bob's hand with vigor. His shoulders relaxed and seemed to fill out the brown sport coat more suitably. He fumbled through more papers and handed Bob a creased business card.

Bob took it curiously and glanced at Bauer's contact numbers. He looked back at Bauer, who was scratching his bald dome, and smiled.

"Just, uh, let me know when you get settled," Bauer said, awkwardly friendly.

"I will. Thanks again."

* * *

**_Continued... _**


	4. Part of the Meditation

It took a week and a half to get settled. Between runs to the furniture store to hand-pick everything, and then putting on the air of merely-mortal Bob Reynolds, struggling to lift a leather loveseat into the downstairs den, Bob still found the entire situation amusing.

_This is how the other half lives, Sentry_, he'd heard the voices say once or twice in those ten days. He laughed, and busied himself elsewhere. Appointing the house to be in his order. Giving the Mustang the car wash it deserved, before October turned into November and it got too cold to do anything.

He allowed himself the meager enjoyment of using his powers to paint the living room and the stairway walls the color of blood. The super-speed and flight made the process go faster, he had to admit. Except that while he was doing it he was moderately concerned as to what people, looking through the windows as they drove or walked past, would think at the sight of a flying man painting the living room walls the color of blood.

The house had stood unfurnished for some time—Bauer the realtor was mum as to just how long—and Bob took to improving it, to making it as he wanted it, with gusto. In his free moments in New York, he'd been a nominal clock repairman. The job had been part-time on a good day, and had given him satisfaction. Had kept him busy. And brought honest income between himself and Lindy—the kind of income he could be proud of. The kind he could work for. The kind that didn't merely come from stock dividends or Lindy's ever-reliable eBay dalliances.

At the end of the first ten days, all of them spent living the Spartan life in the guest bedroom upstairs, the house was ready. Furnished. The power company had started up the utilities again at Bob's haggled price, and he considered it a small victory. During those ten days he slept little, mostly as a matter of course, and found himself doing more work than imagined on the house. He had knocked out a wall in the back room, making the dining room slightly larger, and retiled the master bath upstairs.

It was near midnight, the Friday before Thanksgiving, when he finally washed his hands of home improvement. "Any more work we do," he said to no one as he trotted up the stairs, "and we might just end up rebuilding the damn place." He was pleased with his own ingenuity.

He stopped. He closed his eyes and focused his breathing. Came into himself. Like Dr Worth advised.

_There is no we anymore._

_Just…Bob._

(Just me)

_Damn._

His eyes opened on reflex.

_You're still troubled, Sentry._

He started upstairs again, and pulled off his shirt and denims, paint-caked with streaks and spots of red, kicked off his workboots and left them at the top of the stairs. The clothes fell out of his hand and came to rest lazily on the hallway runner: a dark green affair overlaying darker oak-stained flooring.

He clenched his teeth and went into the master bath.

(Why did you come back now?)

_You needed the wind taken out of your sails. _

He let the shower run for an hour. In that time, the profuse steam had billowed out from behind the cloth curtain and blurred perception.

The steam made its desired effect. The room had become a sauna. At its center, Bob sat, nude, with his legs akimbo. He closed his eyes, and righted his posture. Focused his breathing again.

The air was heavy and damp. Warm. The marble fixtures had absorbed and held the heat.

He felt heavy. The humidity seemed to collect on his skin and gave it a grimy and disgusting texture; all the filth was seeping out. Combined with sweat and accumulated grime on the surface, the ambient water vapor became thin-layered grease. Bob pondered that this was what it was like to take a bath. And then, the small consolation that he could at least sweat and get dirty, like normal people could.

That was worth something.

He felt everything. It was part of the meditation. His sinuses were clear, and every breath was a full one, and his hair lay thick and matted against his skull and forehead.

Beads of sweat formed behind his hairline, under his arms, and trickled slowly, painstakingly, down his face and body under gravity's influence. He felt one form at the back of his neck, and traced its fall down his spine, following perfectly the curve of his vertebrae. When it slowed and dissipated at his lumbar, he arched backwards to alleviate the awkward sensation.

_Stupid. _

(Focus)

He took an exasperated breath and began again.

His vertebrae popped and his spine and body settled, and signaled the onset of the next step. He had occupied comfortable physical space, and now had to move on to actualization.

It was part of the meditation.

The tiled floor was wet and hot, and did not burn.

His shoulders moved slowly, comfortably, and followed the rise and fall of his respiration. He visualized himself sitting there. Covered in a thin and infective layer of sweat and grime and dead skin. And yet…

_You're at rest. Bob._

_That's right._

_Bob._

_That was your name, wasn't it?_

(Is my name. Is)

He opened his eyes and stared forward at the closed door and the tall mirror affixed to the back. Through the steam he saw himself in the mirror. His skin began to take on a reddish hue, and he felt hot for once.

Yes. For right now, everything made sense. Everything had been put in order. He felt…right.

He felt the heat. In every part of him, he felt the heat, and welcomed it.

He stared forward, hunched ever so slightly, his gaze fixed on the reflection staring back at him.

_Who are you?_

He smiled, and the reflection mocked him by doing the same. He wiped a clingy strand of hair from his face, and stood.

"Bob Reynolds."

It came out evenly. Smooth. Assured. "And you're nothing at all."

He showered quickly, washing away the sweat and the grime, pulled on a pair of boxers, and made for the bedroom. In the morning he would make breakfast. As he slid into bed and pulled the chain on the bedside lamp, he was already making up the menu. Two strips of bacon. Denver omelet. Maybe even a Belgian Waffle. Orange juice. And a single cup of coffee.

He laid flat and put his hands behind his head. Looked up at the ceiling.

He didn't need to do any of this.

The house was a token, as was the very act of eating. He didn't need to eat anymore. Didn't need to sleep. Didn't even need to be indoors.

He momentarily found himself wondering if the absence of those things in his life had been self-inflicted. If he had willingly denied himself such creature comforts. Faced with the power of a million exploding suns, the change to regularity—to living as the other half did—was something he could accept.

He turned on his side and contented himself with watching the minutes tick by on the clock radio.

At 2:30 am, his eyes fluttered once, for the last time, and then closed.

* * *

He woke early the next morning and went to the kitchen to set about a large breakfast spread. It was industrious of him to do it, and even a little unnecessary, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. A small television on the countertop played the news and opening bell stock tickers. Bob was engrossed by the presentation, and worked through his breakfast. Clockwise from the sausage, to the eggs, to the bacon and then back the orange juice at eleven o'clock.

He set to work immediately cleaning dishes, and when that was done, sat back at the table and stared out the bay window toward the front of the house.

The neighbors were Myra and Daniel Walter Healey, an elderly couple that had lived on Mockingbird since time immemorial. Myra was a stocky and jovial woman with a perfectly circular perm who cooked quite well. She saw fit to deliver Bob her own 'potato kaboom' the very first day he'd moved in. It was scalloped potatoes with jalapenos, and it was unappetizing at the very least, but he'd sent her a thank-you card with his own scribbled signature inside—as he had done with Bauer The Nervous Realtor.

So while Myra was hunched over her beloved rose bushes with scrutiny, as if praying to them, the husband, Daniel Walter (Bob daren't call him anything but; Daniel Walter was how he'd introduced himself and commanded Bob to call him the same) was sweeping the driveway and putting more effort into it than he needed by using a cornbroom. He wore a shortsleeve button down, despite the briskness of a 50 degree October day, and it had only three buttons buttoned. He was sweating profusely, and the material stuck to a bloated and utterly red chest—the byproduct, Bob suspected, of poorly treated hypertension. He walked with a slight forward hunch, too, and took small steps as if each was his delicated last--which probably meant he'd had hip surgery in his recent geological past, too.

Bob sat back in the chair and took a drink of coffee.

It all looked so strange to him. The spectacle of quiet life. It was a welcome change, he finally reasoned. To see the day start off not with monster attacks but with honest yard work.

Yes. There was something to the sharp geometry of housing planned along perpendiculars and parallels. The street ended on one side in a cul-de-sac, and to Bob that meant that this was, in a few ways, the end of the line. Where fun and dreams went to die, perhaps. But it didn't seem like a particularly dismal end. The neighbors he had seen and graciously accepted welcoming casseroles from seemed…happy.

He hoped he was happy too.

He polished off the coffee and went upstairs to get dressed.

Later in the afternoon Bob found himself shopping for clothes. He'd left Manhattan with precious little and so decided—needed—to expand the wardrobes. Brooks Brothers seemed to have he was looking for, particularly as winter was on its way. He strolled into the store, still upbeat from a night's sleep and his morning observations, and caught the attention of the first associate he saw: a short blonde wearing a V-neck mauve sweater. He glanced at her name tag and made the act look inconspicuous. Sherry. Her name was Sherry.

He was dressed as if he belonged there, and when he went in had gone straight for the sales desk smiling, purposefully showing as many teeth as he could. When she asked him if there was anything he needed help finding, he thought he heard the voices again.

_Of course there is, you stupid little—_

"Yes," he said quickly and held up a hundred-dollar bill. "You can help me spend this."

Sherry's eyes, dark brown circles, went to the bill and locked on it. Her lips, colored the same shade of brown, curled into a smile. She set down the pile of markups she was carrying, and started towards Men's Wear. "Follow me."

He cocked his head and fell in line. "Uh, my name's…Bob." He said it as an afterthought, and it came out lazily.

Sherry asked, "So what can I help you with Bob?"

"Well." He purported to look confounded. "I find myself in need of a sizeable enough, uh, winter catalogue. Sweaters, jackets. You know. Things of that nature."

She gave another thin smile. "I do."

Bob left Brooks Brothers with five hundred dollars worth of clothing—boots, another wool jacket and a blood-red scarf to cap it all. Sherry threw in a bowtie for good measure, a green and navy plaid affair, saying it was worth Bob's time to try one out at least once in his life.

* * *

**_Continued_**


	5. Probably Involved

Bob tossed the shopping bags in the Mustang's trunk and leaned against the fender for a moment. Parked in a street-level lot, he paused for a moment and stared down the street, and wondered what he could do next to occupy himself.

_To keep the voices away, Sentry?_

Directly ahead of him was a Starbucks. Various holiday displays the color of silver and red were stacked in the windows, interrupted every few feet by small two-person tables with customers busily idling away their day and their money. Undesirable, Bob thought. He wanted actual food, not mere scones or lattes.

Down the street from Starbucks and Brooks was a tan and brown building with stark lettering across the roof—_**Panera Bread**_, it read, in bold and cartoonish white letters. _**Café and Bakery.**_

He cocked his head curiously and started walking for the restaurant. Whimsically, he thought, he needed some down time.

Not that he lacked down time. He'd had plenty of it in the past month. And despite everything he had done since leaving Manhattan—the house, the Mustang, the redecoration—everything he'd done to occupy his time and his mind, he still felt slightly exposed. If he wasn't being watched per se, then the feeling was certainly on his mind.

He was worried, and he knew he shouldn't be.

As he pushed the doors open and stepped into the restaurant, he stopped at stared at the menus, slightly illegible things mounted high on the wall behind the cashier's counters and bakery. Bob's brow curled in concentration; he had no idea what he wanted.

He came to the counter warily, his eyes still searching the menus for something. Anything. Something eye-catching.

"Hi there," a feminine voice said. "Can I help you?"

Bob looked at the cashier: a petite brunette, hair slightly messy from the day's work and bundled tightly at the crown of her skull; curled strands of hair hung at her temples—probably the limits of her styling abilities or desires. She worked, he guessed. A lot. And probably didn't have time for meticulous personal presentation. Still, he thought, she was tidy, or looked it. Like…she took care of herself. Capable. Joan of Arc except less completely gung-ho.

_She's also not wearing one of those wage-slave uniforms—nosireebob, this one's management, such as it can be in a place like this. How many wage-slaves do we know, Bob, who wear white button-downs and night-black skirts and heels to work—especially if she's on her feet all day taking orders?_

(Stop calling them wage slaves)

Her eyes were deep-set and blue and small rectangular glasses, cast in black plastic, hung precariously at the upturned end of her nose. Her lips were the color of deep merlot and yet looked natural, and they were curled in a thin and perfectly practiced smile.

The Good Employee.

"Yes," he said shortly. "I'm afraid I've never been here before."

She nodded once, slowly, and said, "We get that a lot here."

"I bet you do. Any recommendations?"

She turned and looked at the hoisted menus, and was silent for a long moment, as if ordering for herself. "Are you a fan of turkey?"

"Sure." Bob had never actually had it. _Then again, there's a lot you haven't had_. He looked at the high menus again, and then back at her. "What's the Sierra Turkey?"

"It's good."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's worth your time," she said. "Can I put you down for one?" She inflected the end of the sentence to give it a vaguely cute and inquisitive ring. She was playing with him.

"Sure," Bob said with little hesitation. He looked to the left quickly and saw a row of glass jars. He pointed a thumb at them and asked, "Tea?"

"Sure. I'll get you some hot water."

His eyebrows flashed as she turned away. He didn't mean it as an order—how presumptive of her. He glanced over the row of glass jars for a second and picked the one nearest to him.

She came back a moment later with a black mug in her hands. She handed it carefully to Bob, who blew the curling wisps of steam away and dipped a Ceylon bag in the solution.

"Thank you," he said and stepped away from the counter slowly, not really sure if the tea was steeping out or not.

As Bob loitered about the pick-up counter for his sandwich, he took intermittent sips from his tea. He stole childish and voyeuristic glances at her every few seconds.

_Brunette, Sentry. And pretty. And those eyes—come on. This is something, isn't it?_

(Yes. It is)

_Who does she remind you of, Sentry?_

(Shut up.)

A harsh teenage voice came over the speakers. "Bob, your order is ready." Then the same teenager's pasty and sinewy arm slid the tray holding Bob's sandwich onto the counter. He gave a small and inaudible thank you, and took the tray in one hand.

She was hovering about the register, counting receipts or doing something vaguely similar that entailed holding a pile of them in one hand and tallying up totals on a notepad—he wasn't sure what. He sipped the Ceylon again and started for one of the many empty tables near her—settling on a low-rise one near the fireplace and its orange-glowing focal point—and slid into the seat. He arched his back and his peacoat slid off his shoulders. He didn't bother hanging it over the back of his seat.

He started in on the Sierra Turkey, sipping his tea and stealing glances at her every few minutes.

_She was nice to you, Sentry. Who else has been so nice? Ever?_

(Oh she was not. She was being a good employee)

_Well maybe you two can play Mister and Missus Good Employee again sometime, hm?_

(Drop it)

_Drink your tea. When you're done, she's going to come over here and ask you very politely if you'd like another. Say yes, and play up your own stupid little James Bond factor that you think endears you to the opposite sex._

(You think you know everything about me, don't you?)

_Someone should._

Bob let out a quick sigh and clenched his jaw. He put his sandwich down, and looked abruptly over at the cashier. She had taken up the register again, and was now listening to a portly man's laundry-list order. She looked bored. Her head darted, almost birdlike, around the room, locked on Bob and when she figured she was looking too long she quickly went back to the fat customer.

Bob angled in his seat and sat back. He rested his chin in one hand. When the portly man's order was finished, he shuffled away and hiked up his pants. She looked over the rest of the dining area before looking over at Bob again.

He smiled thinly, and wondered what he must look like. Another thing to be amused about.

Bob looked at his mug, and noticed it was empty. He looked back at her—she had retreated behind the counter again. He smiled slowly and genuinely, the kind of smile where it's so wide that it pushes the skin beneath his eyes up and makes them narrow. He eyed her thoughtfully.

Like an iceberg. A mystery.

_Oh you idiot._

He chortled, despite himself, and bussed his empty tray to the garbage. As he pushed the glass door open and slid out silently, he raised his hand to her in a single wave. She caught the move and waved back, and cocked her head slowly and curiously and imperceptibly.

* * *

He went back to Panera for lunch the next day, and every weekday thereafter for the next month. Just to see her. For the first two weeks, she had been there. And then she wasn't. Sick, one of the other employees said, and Bob tuned him out. Bob wanted fondly to speak to her again.

As he retrieved his lunch from the order counter and sat at the same table he'd sat at for the month before, he paused for a moment and looked out the window.

It was snowing. A thin layer had already dusted the Mustang and the gunmetal grey finish.

She was hovering a foot away from him before he even registered movement. The breach in his own little personal protocol unsettled him. How was she able to slide under the radar?

_Why are you overanalyzing this, Sentry?_

She smiled. "Can I get you another tea?"

He looked at her eyes and was genuinely grateful that she'd asked.

_See? She's talking to you, that's something._

His defenses, paltry though they were, began to roll back. "Yes," he said and tightened his jaw to stifle the grin.

She tilted her head to a playful angle and pivoted on one heel. Gone to get his refill.

He reached for his wallet.

(This is too easy. This is too easy. People like that don't talk to people like me. Something's wrong here)

_For the love of Christ, Sentry, get off of it. You should be so lucky she's talking to you—that anyone's talking to you! She doesn't even know who you are! Hell, for all she knows you could rock her world. Step one, Sentry, get over yourself. Step two, ask her out._

(She's probably…involved)

_Did you see any rings on those skeletal and leathery things she calls fingers?_

Bob's head jerked to one side when he heard her heels clicking on the floor tiles.

She was strolling toward him with confidence. The glass of hot water in her hand was motionless, even through her walking. When she met the carpeted section, her clicking heels fell silent. She set the mug down where it had been before, and produced another Ceylon bag.

He looked at the bag, and then at her. "Thank you." It sounded inorganic.

(Try harder, Bob)

"You're welcome," she said.

As an afterthought, Bob looked around the restaurant. An older couple sat side by side in a booth on the far side of the dining room, taking great interest in a shared breadbowl of soup—what kind he couldn't tell.

"Wait."

(Shit.)

"I mean. You can have a seat. If you have the time."

Tentatively she did.

"There. Comfy," he said.

(Weak.)

She narrowed her gaze and settled in, hunching forward. "That was pretty slick."

He laughed once, out loud, at that. "Yeah, I know."

"Any more tricks up your sleeve? As in…why you've been coming to my restaurant every day for a month and ordering the same thing."

He saw no point in lying. "To see you."

She sat back in the chair and laughed her own monosyllable. And then: "You must be joking."

Bob found himself staring into her eyes, and mentally snapped out of it. Shaking his head and playing the not-grotesquely-ignorant card, he said, "Well, maybe I went a little too fast."

She shook her head slowly in that mixture of annoyance and amusement.

(And yet…)

She didn't let her armor loosen around him. Maybe that was something.

He sipped the tea and kept his gaze locked on her.

_Funny, isn't it? You could use some laughter, Sentry._

Her eyes narrowed and he gave a brief scoff. "You don't waste time, do you?"

"Well, you have an honest face," he said and made it sound playful as before. And she kept smiling. Flattered.

_She's unflappable, Sentry. Unmoveable. Maybe even impressed by you—at first sight, no less. Should I complete the logical loop and call her an iceberg? Or shall I dig up Lindy's corpse as a visual aid?_

After a while she said, "Thanks." She gave a fake smile and reached one hand across the table, and clasped Bob's sales slip between her index and middle fingers. She brought it to her eyes and read. "Reynolds…is there a first name to go with that?"

"It should say on there," he hinted.

"Bob," she supplied and gave him the Cute version of the Look of Death.

He nodded. "Or Robert. Whichever you prefer."

"Bob." She made it roll off her tongue and gave it the same playful inflection she had given everything else since Bob first walked in. Since he first laid eyes on her. "I like it," she said. "Simple. Easy to remember."

"So I hear…"

"Sarah." She put her hand out. It was bronze and skeletal, and a silver-banded ring was almost dangling off the ring finger. He shook it lightly.

"Let me ask you something," Bob said and played off the quickness with which the words came.

(Remember the meditation)

"Sarah," he added and emphasized it. "Are you busy tomorrow night?"

She stood, her arms falling slowly to her side and staying there.

_Way to go, Sentry._

"I'm working," she said. She could have been lying, but there was something to her eyes. There was honesty there. And, if she was toying with him, playing cute or genuinely interested in breaking a stranger's heart, maybe even a spark of the irreverent.

He followed her move, and pulled on his coat. His eyes danced briefly over her shoulder and glanced out the window. At the thin coat of snow on the Mustang, and on the parking lot, and on the street, and how slowly the cars seemed to move.

"Until when," he asked.

"Seven."

"Why don't we get dinner after that? My treat."

She scoffed and said, "Sure, your place or mine?"

_No way to play it now but the wrong way, Sentry. Use some of that dreadful Bond routine and get her to say yes_.

"Pick you up here?"

"No," she said and meant it, and Bob took it to mean her conscious decision to keep personal and work lives separate. He could respect that. "I'll come to your place."

His head lifted a bit.

(This was too easy. Things don't happen this way. Not for us)

"Ten thirty six Mockingbird," he said. "Off of county road 14, north of here."

"You're kidding." Her eyes widened a bit as she spoke.

His eyes darted around in their sockets. "Um. Am I?"

"Mockingbird," she said and waited for him to understand the absent punchline. "Get it?"

Bob shook his head. Sarah moved toward the counter and rolled the sleeves up on her Oxford/sweater combo. "Nevermind." She smiled, and began punching numbers in the register. "I'll see you tomorrow night."

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	6. Natural Charisma

Dinner went fine enough. As it turned out she was a fan of seafood, which worked out nicely for Bob. There was a Red Lobster at the edge of an overurbanized concrete jungle, the farthest point of which was capped off by a sprawling and eternally busy Wal-Mart. The Red Lobster sat next to an Olive Garden, which sat next to a Best Buy, which sat next to a Petland. The sprawl went this way for another mile or so, until it abruptly gave way to farmlands on one side of the road and a country club on the other.

They pulled into the parking lot, and he tried hard to remember the last time he'd even had seafood.

Had to be the first date with Lindy. Yes, it had to be, he thought as he jogged around the Mustang's side and opened the door for her.

_Had to be the first date because Lindy was wearing that paisley button-down you got her for her twenty-first._

Jesus. They had been young and stupid and horny. Fourteen years ago. Jesus.

What a night that was. They had literally walked into the store, Lindy's eyes were wide, and she seemed to gallop through the racks when Bob had said the words, "whatever you want." She enjoyed her retail, Bob recalled and shook his head slowly. To the detriment of his pocketbook.

But that didn't matter anymore, he supposed. That was then and this was now. And in the very important Now, Bob was gentlemanly—as was his wont when out on the town—and extended his hand to help Sarah out of the car.

Christmas was still a week out, and snow had been falling quietly, without reprieve, for some time—Bob didn't really care to notice. He was merely pleased that the Mustang hadn't succumbed to the terribly obvious design flaw in rear-wheel drive and slid off the road. Yet.

Sally grabbed his hand and stepped out, testing the asphalt for ice as she did and pulling her coat tight.

When she had arrived at his place earlier in the night she was wearing dark bootcut denims and a burgundy sweater. He'd guessed she'd either just rolled out of bed or just come from work. He'd tossed open the door and feigned surprise and thanked her for being prompt. She had gone in, unbidden, carrying a garment bag over one shoulder. "Hi, Bob," she'd said, still in fourth gear, "is there a place I can change?"

He directed her to the upstairs guest room and returned to the kitchen to finish off a half-drunk mug of coffee. And twenty minutes later she'd come down those steps, walking slowly and purposefully. She'd replaced the fleece and denims with brown jackboots, a knee-length pleated wool skirt the color of ash, and a black sweater bunched at the neck to resemble a turtleneck. The skinny black librarian glasses still hung at the end of her nose, and she wore no makeup.

She didn't need to.

He stood in front of the bathroom mirror, buttoning down the Oxford and pressing the pinpoints close to his neck. He took a deep breath and pulled the sweater on—cashmere; silver and green argyle, covering a darker blue Oxford. The white trousers made Brooks Brothers come alive, and for a moment in frozen time Bob felt acutely and unassailably suburban.

By the time he got back downstairs, she was in the den, sitting in the chaise lounge and playfully stoking the fire.

Together, they looked like a couple of overdressed university students, and neither seemed to care.

The hostess strolled dutifully across the dining room and stopped at a table for four, clicking her heels as she did and eliciting a small chuckle from Bob.

"Will this be alright?" the hostess asked and made it seems as though they had a choice.

"Yes," Bob said softly. "Thank you." He waited for Sally to remove her overcoat before he sat, and she tossed it in an open chair at her left. It occurred to him that he should have pulled out her chair for her, and he frowned at the missed opportunity.

The self-doubt went away as their waiter came to the side of the table with the same military precision as the hostess had. He was tall and square, features dark, with a faint and narrow line of stubble following the angle of his jaw. His hair was plastered with gel and stood nearly vertical as it formed a widow's peak. The sleeves on his white Oxford were rolled to the elbow, and his tie looked askew and loose—as if he had loosened it as a tic or out of exhaustion. He'd been busy. Or wanted to give the illusion thereof.

Sarah glanced over the menu for only a moment and then handed it back to him. "A cosmo, please," she said, "with a lemon."

He gave a mechanical smile and looked at Bob, who felt sporting and wanted to waste this guy's time. "Um…I think… I will have a Long Island, please."

The waiter took Bob's menu and asked if he wanted soda in it.

Bob said, "Surprise me."

The waiter smiled again and tapped two fingers on the table's edge and started away. "My name's Bryan, if you need anything," he said.

Sarah said, "thank you" and he was already leaving. Her eyes traced him across the dining room and only went back to Bob when Bryan slid between two flop-hinge doors and into the kitchen.

"Long Island," she said and rested her chin on angled supporting arms. "Interesting choice."

"How do you figure?"

"When I was in college, the Long Island was the province of the sorority sisters who took showers at eight pm every night and went out, unless there was an exam the next day, in search of Mister Right."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, unless Mister Right turned out to be a dick, or they weren't interested. More often than not, I think, Mister Right turned out being Mister Right For The Night."

"And how would you know all this?" Bob asked, as sporting as before.

"I wouldn't." She smiled one of those smiles where only one side of the mouth curled up. Amused, probably annoyed. "I spent all four years in Dean's List territory. The library was a close personal friend. You ever date a librarian, Bob? Even one of the student ones?"

He shook his head and said he hadn't. "Try not to start," she warned, but didn't seem bitter about the experience. "They're the kinds of guys that'd quote you a sonnet mid-coitus."

Bob chortled loudly, one of those loud 'Hah!' moments that instantly embarrassed him. He looked around sheepishly and drank the table water.

"Sorry," she said. "Too much information."

_Hey at least she's not above telling you about the myriad and many horrible old boyfriends she's had. And she's a dish, too, Sentry! What mouth-breathing idiot cocked that up, huh?_

He waved one hand, and his eyes went to her hands, fluttering about as she spoke, and he noticed she wasn't wearing the ring she had been the other day at the restaurant.

"You don't have to apologise to me, Sarah." In his head it sounded far more subdued and far more assertive, but it only came out as a poor imitation of Charlie Brown or some other notable among History's Meekest.

He drank the table water, and his hunch made him look miserly. Like he didn't belong in the company of a comparatively radiant, and she was, positively, woman.

"Are you alright?" She asked and seemed to actually care. That was rare for him. Probably for her too. "You seem tense."

"No," he said too fast. "It's just…"

_Speak in full sentences, Sentry. You're losing her._

(Shut up)

He looked at her. And then at Bryan the Chiseled Waiter, reappearing at the end of a row of booths carrying a tray with two drinks on it. Her cosmo and his Long Island. And back at her.

"No," he said. "It's just that I don't want to say something stupid."

Bryan set the drinks on the table and didn't make a sound. Sally gave him a curt "thank you" and sipped her cosmopolitan immediately. She looked at Bob and her eyes did that soul-searching thing again. "Well. If it makes you feel any better, Bob, try not to think of this as a date, or me as someone you have to impress." Bob narrowed his eyes and smiled. She was still beautiful even in full-on amusement mode, and that was okay for him. She was comfortable.

"Anyway," she added. "As far as impressing goes, you already have."

There it was.

"Is that so?"

(Who talks like that?)

"Yeah." She was nonplussed, and maybe even a little amused by him. It was okay, too. He was captivated by her. Everything seemed to line up just right. Even her perfume seemed to hit all the right notes. Estee Lauder—the cheap stuff—but she pulled it off well enough. She smiled.

And reached a slender and bronzen hand across the table, laying it on top of his own and squeezing ever so slightly. "You got me out to dinner," she said. "And you didn't do it stupidly, you know? It was sweet."

He was intrigued. And surprised. "I'm inclined to doubt that." He made it sound half-ass academic.

She sounded genuine, and he wondered what had happened to her five years ago.

"And maybe I was aiming for just enough so you wouldn't be totally crushed if I told you no," she said. "You're a nice guy, Bob. Consider me used to the dicks. The dicks who're always on their cellphones and too busy to spend time with people."

"I wouldn't know."

"Oh," she said and looked deflated.

"It's a long story. I'll have to tell you some time," she said and smiled fake. She waved a hand and then sighed curtly. "You're different. In a good way."

She gave him a measured look, like she was trying to discern an unasked and unanswered question on her own.

He leaned back in his seat.

Pause.

She leaned forward and grabbed his hand, as if to say she was committing. Not letting go. Not giving up.

"You haven't taken your eyes off me since we sat down, or even since we met at the restaurant, and that was a month ago. Okay? I'm a smart woman. So why don't you tell me what's on your mind, there, Bobbo?"

He breathed in once and lamented that. He had left his life in New York behind, but all his problems…the voices…seemed to be already waiting for him in Ohio. His eyes darted around.

_I think it's your turn now. Bob._

No need to tell her the truth. No need to lie. His eyes narrowed and he committed himself:

"My life's really….complex. I...I just wanted some lunch, you know? And then I met you, and for some reason I don't really understand, it was…I wanted to see you again, and I haven't felt that way about anyone in years. So I thought…I said to myself, 'she's nice, see what happens.' Like a little kid who dips his big toe into the deep end to test the water, you know?"

She nodded.

"Of course you know," he said and waved a hand and sipped the Long Island again. "Anyway, asking you to dinner was the next step. I'm not quite sure what the step after this is. Well, I think I know but I—"

"Bob," she said and squeezed his hand again

She stood and took the seat at Bob's immediate right. And stared right into his eyes. It was at this point that Bob noticed the brilliant green behind the skinny black librarian glasses.

_Green._

_Like Lindy._

She leaned forward and kissed him. Quick and relatively painless.

And Bob didn't feel so flustered anymore. He smiled thinly at her. The kiss had been brief and unexpected and wonderful, and it took Bob back in time.

Before Lindy.

Before the serum. Before the drugs.

There were times, certainly, when he wished he could remember what it was like back then. High School. His first kiss (which he was about ninety-seven percent sure had been with Lindy). Driver's licences. The first beer he ever drank underage and how stupid he must have looked.

At the age of sixteen, in suburban New York, there were worse things than Lite Beer. Worse things…so much so that by the time he was a college freshman, he was an emaciated shell of himself.

He wished he could remember why. Why he thought those things were…important.

Quickly he drove the thoughts away. Everything tonight had gone pretty well, he thought.

He'd successfully divested himself from New York. He had a car, and a house, and a dinner date. All those great suburban things people want.

(Right?)

He chuckled to himself.

It wasn't even a matter of wooing. Not for Bob Reynolds, who didn't need to woo. He had natural charisma or so he guessed. Charisma—that had been what Lindy called it, and even, he supposed, the clinical term for compulsive affability. His ability to win over, charm and otherwise endear people to himself. Despite being, for the most part for most of high school and college up until breaking into the Professor's lab, a drug-addicted walking derelict.

Perhaps it was an offshoot, a side effect, of the Professor's formula that enhanced the charisma. That soothing feeling. The only thing Bob or anyone else knew of that could calm Bruce Banner's anger.

Bob sighed.

As Bryan the Chiseled Waiter came, as Sarah and Bob placed their orders both for the grilled Tilapia and Bob finished what was left of the Whiskey Sour, he couldn't keep the thoughts out.

He watched Bryan stroll away, and looked back at Sarah.

She reminded him of Lindy in so many ways. In too many ways.

And he couldn't stop wondering if it was The Sentry doing all the talking.

If he could just switch off the Sentry sometimes.

If his stupid and ill-gotten powers, the same ones that calmed Banner, were also working to calm Sarah.

And if that was the case, who was really charming whom here? And who was she falling for?

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	7. Plain Sight

Time passed.

It was December 23rd.

She hadn't called him since dinner that night. When they'd both learned a little too much about each other. That had been a week ago.

He wondered why she hadn't called, and thought about putting in a call to Dr Worth.

"No," he said to the kitchen as he was in the middle of making his lunchtime turkey and ranch. "You're not doing that."

There was probably a good reason for it. Probably.

He had gone to pay the gas and water bills before the offices shut down for the Holidays, and somewhere along the way decided to haunt the nearest shopping Mecca to waste some time and get his mind, to his credit, off Sarah. He ended up coming back from Borders with a stack of books ranging from the grotesque (_Tales of HP Lovecraft_), to the mundane (_Auto Repair for Dummies_, since the Mustang's rear brakes were acting up and he didn't have a clue about that sort of thing), to the provincial (_The Shipping News_).

Then, she called. Sounded urgent.

"Where've you been?" she asked. He was thrown by the question and checked his answering machine, across the kitchen next to the flour and sugar canisters on the counter. It was a layout flaw—his phone being so far over there on the side of the kitchen he hardly used—and he kicked himself for seeing the blinking '5' on the display and having missed her messages.

"I was out," he said. "Errands. Sorry. What do you need?"

"Then you're busy?"

He sat at the table and popped a NakedJuice open. "No, not really, I mean the Mustang's been acting up but—"

"I have an idea I want to run past you."

He paused. "Okay."

"Christmas Eve services. I don't know how religious you are or not, but it's sort of a thing in my family that we go at least to the Christmas service. Does that sound like something you'd be interested in?"

A date? He wondered about the label, and decided it best to not call it a date if it was categorically in the realm of the Church. He sipped the juice again and said as he exhaled, "It sounds fine." More sheepishly, out of genuine unfamiliarity with the practice: "What do I have to do?"

"Dress nicely—that's all, I promise. I'll come by around seven tomorrow." She paused. "And, we'll go. Sound good?"

"Yeah." Bob said it honestly. "I'll see you tomorrow night, I guess."

"Great," she said and gave a quick g'bye. Bob thought for a moment that he'd made her really happy. He set the headset back on the table and watched the phone a moment longer and then chuckled once, in a higher octave.

* * *

The blue and white Dutch Colonial across the street belonged to the rose-waterer Myra Healey (nee' Patterson, by her own admission) and her younger yet somehow older husband, Daniel Walter. The former had worked on the clerical side of things with a sweeper company in town back in her own distant geological past—it was the only job she'd held in her life and it was forty years ago. She'd spent the time since then doting on Daniel Walter, a hunched and gaunt career unionist with a broad aquiline nose who'd retired from the GM plant in 1986 when production dropped. It was fifty degrees and snow was starting to fall, but as if to give a polite finger to the weather gods, Daniel Walter and Myra both sat on the porch in matching yellow rockers sipping what they'd told Bob were Mint Juleps. Both of them were obstinately old, enough so to brave the cold to drink on the porch and watch the world pass them by. And they seemed to revel in their oldness.

Bob supposed he held that against them. Maybe.

Their brick driveway, laid down by Daniel Walter himself with about half of his pension, was pitted and sunken, worn too greatly by constant wear and the lack of upkeep.

In front of the bricked and bumpy drive, blocking it actually (at which Myra and Daniel Walter didn't seem too perturbed) sat a 46 Ford. Cherry red. The chrome on the fenders and wheels shone almost too perfectly.

The blonde kid—and he was blonde, Bob could tell that much—driving it had put a little too much effort into aesthetics. Privately, Bob wondered if its owner respected the car enough to give it the Engine of Death and Power it deserved. Despite not knowing how to change brakes, Bob's own Mustang had given him a taste for automobiles—which was actually a great thing, since it seemed to have all the problems of a major carnival ride just about once every week. Repairing the old girl gave Bob something to do in his free time—and there was certainly a lot of that. He wondered again if the blonde kid reclined in the 46's driver-seat, with his tanned features and angled jawline and permanently downturned eyebrows, had as much time on his hands.

Then Bob's thought-train stopped and he squinted as a matter of course as he looked at the car, his lips turning down. A blonde kid with hair gelled in a line of forty-five perfect degrees across his hairline and, when he turned his head, his widow's peak. He wore a dark brown corduroy jacket with the collar popped, and Bob swore he saw him plunge a finger up his nose, digging for forbidden gold. A good looking kid, despite bad habits, with sharply angled eyebrows, an elfish nose that turned skyward at the end, and high, prominent cheekbones.

Through immaculate and polished windows Bob could see the blonde kid snapping his fingers every few seconds like some nervous tic.

Snap—and a flame on the index finger. Snap—and the flame went out.

Bob drew a quick breath and shot it back out.

Johnny Storm.

_Way to hide in plain sight._

_They couldn't leave you alone, Sentry. Ain't it always the way?_

(Shut up. Shut up shut up shut UP.)

_Goddamn them, Sentry. Look at that immature little sonofabitch out there. Clicking his damn fingers to the phat beats waiting on you to come out, thinking he's some slick secret agent, why we should go out there and give him a taste of his own fucking medicine, toss his little bleach-blonde perfectly tanned and perfectly formed ass right into the goddamn sun like you do with all your problems._

(SHUT UP!)

_Come on, cease the charade! Put on that damn Sentry suit and bust down some walls, break some red lights and put this little motherfucker out of his misery. How much of a best friend can Reed be if he doesn't even trust you to live your own life? Huh?! So he sends the goddamn Janice Dickinson model to spy on you? Who do these people think they are?_

(Friends.)

_Friends would know when to leave well efuckingnough alone, Sentry. These are no friends of yours. I wonder sometimes if you missed that memo._

Bob stood slowly and drew a deep breath as he did. He felt his neck muscles tighten and one arm form into a fist.

(God damn this.)

Bob stared at Johnny a moment longer, and Johnny made the stupid mistake of looking back, if only for a microsecond in time; as soon as he looked at Bob, his head jerked back forward to stare down the boulevard. Playing nonchalantly, Johnny began thrumming his fingers on the aluminum rim of the steering wheel. Pretending not to have seen Bob.

Bob turned from the window and strode out of the kitchen. Quickly.

Johnny watched Bob leave the window and then pulled out his cellular. He dialed only four digits and waited for the signal to patch through.

"Yeah, it's Johnny," he said and didn't sound enthused. "Contact? Sort of. He saw me and looked pretty pissed, if that's what you're getting at. What?" Pause. "No. No, I'm not doing it." Pause. Sigh. He rubbed his temples. "Can I just tell you something, Nick?" Pause. "Okay. I'm going to remind you why the hell I'm doing this, and just how much bullshit I think this is. Okay?" Pause. "Okay. This is a favor to Reed, because despite everything and the _Times'_ article to the contrary, I do think the world of the guy. You don't give me that same warm-fuzzy, Nick. No offense, I'm just saying. You give me a legit reason to keep up on Bob, or I'm coming home.

"Okay?" Pause.

Johnny closed the phone and burned it as it sat in the palm of his hand, and threw the flakes to the wind. He looked at Bob's house again, then threw the 46 in gear and peeled out.

He shook his head as he thought of Nick Fury's churlish commands to keep up on Bob.

"Bastard," he said. Meant it.

Johnny scowled as he looked in the rearview mirror, to the sight of a hunched old man with a Mint Julep in his hand, shaking an emaciated fist at the 46 shrinking into the distance.

* * *

In New York, or five miles above it anyway, in one of the SHIELD Helicarrier's conference rooms, Nick Fury pulled out his headset and tossed it on the table lazily. The static was strangely loud, and it rankled him. Reed Richards was sitting next to him, lounging uncharacteristically lazy in his seat.

Fury was irritated. "What?"

Richards sighed and it was one of those half-sigh, half-chuckle affairs. He ran a gloved hand through his hair and slid down in his seat.

* * *

Bob was in the bathroom doing meditation again when Sarah called. He threw on a towel and bounded out the door at the sound of the phone, and almost tripped going down the stairs. He caught the ringer a second before it went to the voicemail and spoke quickly into the receiver.

"Hello?"

"It's Sarah. I'm on my way—maybe about two minutes away. Are you still up for services tonight?"

Bob was momentarily puzzled and forced himself to remember. "Yeah, yeah. Door's open, just come on in whenever you get here."

"Great," she said. "See you soon."

He disconnected and ran upstairs. Quickly he changed; pulled on briefs, then grey trousers, and a simple white Oxford. Black shoes and socks. He stared at the sweaters in one drawer for a moment, and decided on a navy crew-neck. Not fussy, and it matched the grey and white get-up. He peddled down the stairs a moment later, just as Sarah was pushing the door shut. She turned around to see him, and he slowed, then stopped.

"Well, hello," she said fondly and held out a small bag that read 'Brooks Brothers' on it. "I got you something."

He was quizzical. "You didn't have to," he said and took the bag anyway. A thin band of butcher paper was taped in the center and as he unwrapped it he found the paper concealed another bowtie. A red one, with blue and yellow crossbars. He smiled slowly and genuinely, and chuckled once. "You…didn't have to do this."

"I wanted to," she said and slid her coat off, and tossed it on the bench by the staircase. "It's Christmas out, you know. Goodwill and all that."

He chuckled again.

"Well try it on," she said and motioned her hands forward. "I went in there and said I needed a bowtie and the lady took me right over to the ties and suits section, I guess it is? Anyway, this one caught my eye. The lady called it Royal Stewart tartan or something. Queen Elizabeth uses it. Not that you'd know that sort of thing." She smiled.

"Yeah yeah," Bob said, still mesmerized.

_A gift, Sentry. Man alive. And what did you get her?_

He wrapped it around his neck and tied it quickly and expertly, checking himself in the hallway mirror when he finished. With the Oxford and the sweater and everything else, it was like a perfect fit.

_How fortuitous._

He marveled at his own handsomeness a moment longer and then turned back to Sarah. "Do you want to sit down for a bit, or should we just go?"

"Service starts at 7:30," she said and checked her watch. "Probably should have blown in earlier, but whatever." She grabbed her coat and pulled the door open. Bob grabbed his overcoat—it matched the grey trousers exactly—and said, "After you."

She smiled and leaned forward and kissed him briefly. Then, turned and walked out onto the front porch.

He slid his coat on and smiled, and his eyes narrowed with the action.

He was going to have to think of something great for her.

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	8. Ready Or Not

_**Author's Note:**_ Sarah's last name, as you'll see, is a nod to another fictional character, a pastor by the name of David who lives in a sleepy little town, founded by wayward Norwegians in the 19th century, with which you may be familiar: Lake Wobegon.

* * *

Sarah was a Presbyterian and the service was, too. They went in the Mustang and walked in casually enough. An elderly woman at the door wearing a conservative, straight-black pantsuit welcomed Bob and Sarah, and even held the door open for them. Up the stairs and around the corner was an alcove dubiously named the Coat Check. It consisted of them hanging their coats on hangers among cedar dividers. Another turn around another corner and they were in what Sarah called the Library Lounge, just off the Sanctuary. A long table between two davenports held sleek aluminum carafes and stacks of Styrofoam cups. Bob look longingly at one, and then followed Sarah as she grabbed his hand, and led them to an indiscriminate row near the center of the Sanctuary.

The priest—or preacher or father or whatever they were calling him, Bob wasn't really sure, though everyone else seemed fine with "Dr Kent"—talked about likening faith and the Church to a game of hide and seek. About how, ready or not, God was coming. Or was already here.

Bob wasn't sure about that. Or any of it. It wasn't even a matter of atheism. He'd simply been…out of touch.

_Please. Out of touch. Story of your life, Sentry._

The whole time, he kept his hand latched on top of Sarah's, fingers tightly grasping one another's. Maybe out of fear. He had been out of his element in that church, and knew it. And that was what made him withdraw into himself.

Thank God the voices hadn't started up.

(Yes. God.)

The service had taken all of forty minutes—short, Bob reasoned. But then, he'd never really done the Church thing before, so he supposed he didn't have much for comparison. He was always…busy.

And now, as they pulled back into Bob's driveway, exited the Mustang and Bob opened and closed Sarah's door as she got out, he kept going back to that 'too busy' bit. High School, such as it was to his memory, was a haze. But he knew all that. Lost in drugs and self-loathing and pointless little cries for help. And college, Empire State, kept him busy trying at first to woo Lindy away from Buzz and that goddamn letterman's jacket of his—

Bob sighed as he opened the front door for Sarah. She walked in and threw her overcoat on the bench by the stairs. Bob looked back out for a second before closing the front door. Snow was starting to fall, and already he imagined have to trudge through it. Hearing it crunch and collapse beneath his boots as he would dig the Mustang out from the mountainous blizzard he imagined was coming.

Sarah was already on her way upstairs to the bathroom, to freshen up she said.

Bob went to the den and sat on the edge of the coffee table. He flipped the TV on, and watched CNN on mute. He sucked the snot back into his sinuses with a quick inhalation, and looked out the window. The snowflakes were large and wet, and they'd probably turn the walkway to ice by midnight.

He slouched a bit, and thought about talking to God.

Wondered if he was even there. Or if he had ever been at some point before.

Bob's eyes narrowed at the idea. There was no way he could wax religious without looking like an idiot, and those days were behind him.

(I've never questioned you. I never really thought about it much, I guess, either. Whether you're up there or if you aren't. I never slowed down to think about these things. Now I suppose I have. I guess I have a reason to.)

He vaguely remembered something from some Empire State lecture, or something about Predestination and why it had pissed off so many people when Luther started talking about it.

(I know these things happen for a reason. I know that whatever happens, happens and that we're usually better people for it. It's not even a matter of faith in you, either. It's just something I've come to understand. That whatever we do, we do. And it has consequences. You don't punch someone in the face and have your hand feel okay afterwards. Things…happen. And we have to work with them, I guess.)

The snow kept falling. Out in the street Bob could see two boys running, one chasing after the other and throwing poorly-rotund snowballs every few seconds. They stopped for a moment in front of his living room bay window to gather their strength and make a few more snowballs, then kept running.

With unnaturally good timing, he felt a hand, warm and soft, slide across the back of his neck and massage his shoulder only once. Her hand squeezed and he threw one if his own up to grab it. Kept looking forward.

She smelled of freesias. And he could tell she was instantly at ease. Comfortable. She sat down on the coffee table's open spot behind him and wrapped both arms around him at elbow level, and rested her head against the curvature of his neck.

Softly, she said, "Are you alright?"

He smiled and let out a quick, amused, breath. "Yeah."

"You're tense," she corrected. "Again. I can feel it through that eighty dollar sweater."

His eyebrows flashed and he grumbled a bit under his breath. Turned slightly in place, still seated. "You're right." It was then that he noticed what she was wearing. A pink camisole and a flowing, matching, robe.

His brow furrowed and he found himself slightly uncomfortable.

_Weak, Sentry._

His shoulders sunk at that.

_Really weak. Take her upstairs and give her a ride on the old Bobcoaster and then dump her ass._

(It won't be that way.)

_Then prove me wrong, and find out. Let her do what she wants. And then…suddenly. With the power of a million you-know-whats—_

She leaned forward more and kissed him. It was deep and warm and wonderful, and he followed the clichés and ran his hand across her cheekbone and then through her hair. And let it happen.

She slid away a moment later, slowly, and cleared a wisp of hair from her face. She looked incredibly ethereal. Quiet. But secure.

She sensed his uneasiness. "Too strong?"

He narrowed his eyes and quickly returned the kiss with another. One of those deep and highly suspect ones where his arms wrapped around her almost completely and angled her back in a dancer's dip. He brought her up, and said, "Not even strong enough."

Then, Bob stood and grabbed her hand and she stood. And went with him upstairs.

Outside, the snow kept falling.

* * *

The master bedroom was cold. He'd opened the street-facing window earlier in the day—the radiator had been buggy all week and he had kept putting off looking at it. So the window was open, and the curtains were blowing imperceptibly in the midnight breeze, and the air was brisk, and he felt motivated by it. Energized.

He lay on his side staring out at the roof on the Healey's house. It shone in the clear moonlight. He took a deep breath and his eyes narrowed, tired, as he did. He was feeling contemplative, as was his wont, he supposed.

(At least it stopped snowing)

A corner of his mouth angled into a smile at that. Now it was just cold.

Not even cold, really. The weather gods had been fickle this week, and it had gone from snow to rain only to go back to snow. It was snowing when they came home, but had now stopped. The midnight clear was crisp, and Bob didn't feel so cold. He was okay with that.

He lay on his side, and his brow furrowed gently. He turned back halfly—Sarah was still asleep, curled up into herself, with a throw blanket barely covering her.

In the heat of the moment, she'd led him upstairs but he had to lead the rest of the way because she didn't know where the master bedroom was. Once they were in there, she retreated to the bathroom and came out a moment later, stark raving naked, and dropped her clothes by the bureau in a pile. Bob had been sitting on the edge of the bed with half an idea of what was about to happen, and when she strolled out looking perfectly natural with her naked beauty he only smiled.

And when she pushed him back and started pulling off the eighty dollar sweater and the Oxford underneath and the hundred dollar trousers and dress Doc Martens, he didn't mind.

There were things he didn't need to do, given the wide berth his powers and his stupid ingestion of the Professor's formula had given him in his other life. Eating was one. Sleep was another. Even getting dressed was a formality—he didn't do it because he was cold: he dressed because it was what normal people did. He ate because it was what normal people did. He'd even made love to Sarah because that's what normal people do.

_Ever since college, you've wanted desperately to be one of those normal fuckers, haven't you, Sentry?_

(You would know)

_You know, you used to be a little more tolerable when you were unbalanced. Now you've got this retard…strength about you. It sickens me._

He took a deep breath again and threw his arms up and behind his head and didn't care that he must've looked supremely confident. He had a good night.

_Yeah a good night. Took her to bed, and you've been seeing her for a month and you don't even know her last name. What does that tell your very small mind and its very limited thought process. Maybe you should ask yourself what else you don't know about your little chickadee._

(Huh)

_Yeah. Let's discuss later the ways in which you can owe me._

Gently, he slid out of bed, the cold still biting at him for every inch, and went to the bureau. He looked back at her, and then felt for her wallet among the pile of her clothes. Past the bra and panties, both black, at which he cocked a Puritanical eyebrow, and the white-button down, he found it. He stood and his back was at pains to do so, and he slid into the bathroom, switching on the light and closing the door in the same quiet and ginger motion.

He bent over the sink slightly and opened it. A licence with her picture, in which she looked silly and beautiful, stared back at him. Her name was Sarah Ingvist. She was 5'10, one-sixty-five, and the only restriction was for corrective lenses. The address of residence had her living on a five-digited boulevard in Venice, California.

The row of cards, filed atop each other went to the tune of a library card, a Borders Rewards Card, a Kroger Plus Card, and the three major credit cards, all gold.

His eyes narrowed at this, and he let out a quiet sigh. He put the picture back in its place and pulled the door open a centimeter. She was still sleeping, but now on her back: the throw blanket covered only her from the navel down to the knees. He frowned and looked back at the wallet.

Then he shuffled it back amongst her things, shut the window and lay back in bed. He laid there quietly for another hour before she started stirring. She looked out the window and wiped her face with one hand and said a bleary 'hello' to him. He smiled back, and she nuzzled closer to him. He looked over her head—the alarm clock was on her side of the bed, and the glowing red display read 3.30—and then into her eyes.

"How'd you sleep?" he asked.

"Fine." She kissed him once on the lips and settled against his chest and waited for the warmth to transfer over. He breathed heavily once.

"Where's Venice?" Of course, asking had meant he'd gone rooting through her things. He pushed forward anyway, better to be assertive, he reasoned.

"Huh?"

"California," he supplied.

She frowned slowly, and then said, "Oh. You know Long Beach? LA?"

"Sure."

"Thereabouts. Why?"

"I was just curious."

"Oh," she said. "What, you went through my dirty laundry?" She started tracing circles on his rising and falling abdomen.

"Yes," he said and instantly regretted it. "I…Sorry."

"It's fine," she said and took a deep breath. "S'not like I'm a secret agent."

He smiled halfly. "Yeah."

"Why do you ask?" She was starting to sound more awake.

"Because you never told me."

She cocked her head and her eyes widened as if to say, 'well that's true, Mister Weisenheimer.'

"Alright," she said. "I was a writer. You know, a writer. Television and all that."

Bob shrugged as much as he could with his back against the headboard. She kept going.

"Y'ever see Law and Order?" Bob nodded. "Yeah, that was me, since the eighth season, which incidentally is when Variety said the show started to go up in quality."

Bob thought about it for a moment.

"Anyway," she said. "When the writers went on strike I decided I'd had enough. The job was fine and I was doing good things and I met some really remarkable people there. I met Teri Hatcher at a party and we played racquetball after Halloween. This was before the strike, but you get my point?" Bob nodded. "Yeah. I was tired of the bullshit, though, and there was a lot of it to be had there. I don't know about you but I'm from a sleepy little nowhere town, and LA was just a little too vibrant for me. Everyone coming and going and I didn't know up from brown.

Bob was puzzled at the non sequitur but let it slide.

"I started seeing one of the other writers on the show, a little wiener named Bryan, which is why I cringed at that waiter at the restaurant that night, and we dated for a long time. I had been in LA since my 25th birthday, and I'm thirty-two now, and all of those years I spent with him. He was lazy, in a word. I met him through a friend, one summer when I was doing an internship at Cornell. He was smart then. Cute. Very brilliant. Creative Writing, the whole bit. Went to writer's workshop after writer's workshop, which after junior year became an excuse for him to talk about liberalism, the lost generation and the wonders of LSD." She said, sadder, and looked at the ceiling: "He took the job at CBS and never stopped talking about how the real ideas and freedom were in novels. How television was dying. I think he thought he was Steinbeck's reincarnation."

"You're joking."

"Actually, a little bit," she said. "He started to get lazy. CBS hired him on and the JAG ratings went up. He was gifted, everyone knew it, and he knew how to play himself up. But he was an angry little bastard and he didn't like it when somebody proved him wrong. I followed him out to California a year later, and got my own spot working the NBC office out there. We'd go out to dinner at these great places with these great people, and all he would do is bitch about the bill or how underdone the steak was. Sure the sex was fine—"

Bob rolled his eyes and thought that inappropriate to mention. He let the stream of consciousness go. It was educational.

"—But I think I hated him just the same. Near the end we just stopped talking to each other when it became clear the fire was going out. He came onto Law and Order, and we started to put our problems into the show, that's when the ratings took off. So I was glad that somebody was getting entertainment. To make up for another nasty fight, Bryan came home with an engagement ring about three sizes too big. I asked him where he got it, he said from his friend Yoki, some Japanese sushi-chef." Pause. "I cut him off so easily after that." Pause. "I think I was ready to, anyway. And leaving LA was…a little too easy, too. I enjoyed it, but it was regretful that I left as fast as I did. Deciding to leave…that was easy." Pause. "I guess I'm not used to having it easy." Pause. She said, more quietly, more forlorn, and trailed off, "So…"

Quickly and stupidly, Bob slid one hand around her head and went in for a deep and passionate kiss, the kind they only write about, the kind that exists only in 'The Princess Bride' or some Nicholas Sparks novel about love being a many splendored thing.

He pulled away slowly, and felt his heart pounding in his chest for the first time in years. He hadn't been this energized since he punched out Dr Doom, since he ran the Super-Skrull through with a lamppost and tossed him in the East River.

He noticed a tear at the edge of Sarah's eye, and wiped it away with his thumb.

"I'm sorry," he offered, meager.

"It's okay. I should have told you." She sniffled once and looked out the window, and pulled the blanket up to cover her exposed breasts. Bob sidled up next to her and stretched his arm around her, in the open space between her neck and the headboard.

"I, uh, I don't know what to say."

"Nothing to say," she said. "Story of my life."

He paused, and then asked, "How did you end up at Panera?"

She smiled and pushed out a breath that sounded like a laugh. "They needed managers, and my résumé was impressive, I guess."

Bob cocked his head thoughtfully, amused, at that. An accomplished lady. And she gave it up, same as he did, because she hated what her life had become.

He thought of the Church service.

Providence, Dr Kent called it. Godly providence.

And then he heard someone somewhere. Distant.

She rolled over and got comfortable, and Bob let his arm rest under her and his other over her shoulders. His eyes were leaden and slowly closed. And he swore he heard someone somewhere. A cold and distant voice giving a cold and distant warning.

_I love you, Golden Guardian. I swear I do._

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	9. Wondering The Same Things

They slept late that morning, it was Christmas after all, and Bob strolled into the kitchen wearing lounge pants and a shirt he found at a Second Hand that read 'Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge '94.' He was tamping Earl Grey leaves into a filter and holding it at the water level of a large cappuccino mug when he looked out the window. Daniel Walter and Myra Healey were loading supplies into Daniel Walter's old Plymouth Fury, painted the color of that PBS dinosaur the neighbor boys wanted so badly to harass.

Bob slid into a chair in the breakfast nook, and watched Daniel Walter yell at Myra for stacking the "kid's presents all cocked up!" Daniel Walter threw his hands in the air, and the noontime breeze caught the tricep-wings of his hideous cable-knit sweater.

Twenty minutes later, the Fury finally ambled out of the driveway and rattled down the road, no doubt on the way to the Healey family Christmas, wherever that was. Bob imagined forty other Healeys gathered around a table, all 'hankering fer some ham!' and all yelling over one another because what Uncle Bob had to say was more important than Aunt Myrtle, and who gave a shit about Johnny trying to get into college because who did he think he was?

Bob shivered and didn't know why and took another drink of tea.

Not five minutes later, Johnny Storm's 46 Ford stopped in the street, after the Healey's driveway and before their mailbox, Johnny trying earnestly to be Mister Good Motorist.

Bob got up quickly and went to the front door, He strolled out on the front porch, which was really more of a five-by-five square of laid-in bricks, and braved the cold blowing down the street. The mailbox was a black iron affair, nailed to the siding on the door's right side. Bob cast a quick and indiscriminate glance at the Ford, and then flipped the mailbox lid up, fetched out the collected mail he'd neglected to get during the last week because he honestly didn't feel like it. Then he strolled back inside and shut the door softly.

In the driver's seat, plush and comfy, of the 46 Ford, Johnny Storm finally let his shoulders sag and he sighed and ran a hand through his hair, which cocked up the gel, but that was okay. He looked over at the Dutch Colonial whose driveway he was blocking and said, in his deepest and most worrisome, "Christ…"

* * *

Bob went back into the kitchen and tossed the pile of mail, bills and a check from the Gilloglys next door for shoveling their walk last week, on the table. Sarah was emptying a spatula and a single hotcake onto a plate full of its fried and battered brethren, and he slid his arms around her waist and kissed her on the cheek once. She let him do it, and set the spatula down, and he released his lock around her.

"Merry Christmas, Mister Reynolds," she said.

"Same to you," and he kissed her again. "So what shall we do today?"

She grabbed the plate of pancakes and tucked a bottle of Aunt Jemima under one arm, and made for the den, and Bob followed. "Well, first, I plan on camping out for as long as you'll have me and watching every old movie I ever wanted to. There're some great beats in those old Bogart movies that really energize me, y'know? Gets the juices flowing. I've been thinking of getting back into the writing game, and since I've oodles of sicktime from the restaurant saved up, I figure this is as good a time as any. Plus," she said more amusingly, "you inspire me."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," she said and laid down the plate and the syrup on the coffee table, and sat on the davenport. The television was one of those plasma affairs about which Bob knew nothing: he'd walked into the electronics store and, similar to the whole Brooks Brothers thing, said he wanted a TV, something nice, because TVs should be meant to be looked at, and price was sort of an object, but Bob moreover wanted to feel important.

A nice new TV was important to him. He didn't feel he needed to defend this, and Sarah didn't seem to mind 'The African Queen' in gloriously rendered High Definition.

They sat for the next hour and a half watching Bogart and Kathryn Hepburn fight off Nazis in colonial Africa, sharing the mountain of pancakes, and when that was done, she switched it over to digital cable.

Discovery Channel specials on how banjoes were made, History Channel shockumentaries on the True Nature of Christ and How He Wasn't Really What We Think of Him. TLC specials on customized motorcycles for the FDNY. They found 'Spaceballs' on the Comedy channel and got comfortable with that. Sarah didn't laugh except when Rick Moranis' head went flying through the metal box during Ludicrous Speed, but she had a gleam in her eye the whole time, one of total transfixion.

He sat lazily in the sofa, and when she curled up next to him he threw an arm around her shoulder. Took a deep breath. And he couldn't shake the feeling that the bum's rush was fast coming.

Bob slept badly that night. Wondering what the rest of his people were doing. Simon, and Carol. Natasha. If Janet and Henry had decided to call off their mutual dogs and enjoy a Christmas together. If all super-people were meant to worry this much about things that didn't matter.

If Reed Richards, or maybe even Nick Fury, was staring out his window, too. Wondering the same things.

* * *

Sarah stayed with him for the week following Christmas, and went into Panera on December 27th to resign, which went politely enough. She sublet her apartment to the Gillogly's son Arthur, so recently a college graduate, and within the past month possessive of an apparently great job at the newspaper in town. Sarah went in for a visit on December 30th and Arthur had the place neatly oriented along perpendiculars and diagonals like the good obsessive-compulsive personality he was. She signed him over the last of the rent forms and shook his hand and bid him happy living. She and Bob went to the Turner's Steakhouse franchise on the edge of Columbus to celebrate her new life.

* * *

On New Year's Eve, Bob and Sarah went dancing at a jazz bar/seafood restaurant on the north side of Columbus, The Ocean Club, which was a strange title, Bob thought, given the landlocked nature of the state capital. They went and it was glorious. They overdressed for the occasion, as they'd done on their first date, Sarah in a length black dress: black as the ace of spades with a white satin stripe down the left side and the excess tied into a bow just below the waist line. She bound her hair at the crown with a gold weave hairnet she'd bought years ago in Amherst, on a tour of UMass, which she ended up not attending, so the story went, in favor of a full-ride and Fulbright to Yale. She wore a thin silver chain around her neck, with a caduceus pendant hanging low and resting on her sternum.

Bob finally caved and bought a tuxedo, which he'd always wanted.

Every table in the restaurant was packed with other people, dressed as Bob and Sarah, eating the same courses, drinking the place dry, enjoying the same company as the youthful pianist hard at work over the Steinway. The Ocean Club's owner, an equally youthful man wearing a linen suit and striped blue-white seersucker underneath, strolled up to the microphone. He introduced himself merely as 'Rene' and jabbed the crowd to 'give it up for our newest star, Harry Watson!'

A couple of kids, Bob guessed in their early twenties, probably college lovebirds on break before going back for Winter Semester, sitting at the next table over. Sarah struck up a conversation with the girl, a polite blonde number who called herself, in a thick Bostonian, Allison, and then touched her boyfriend's arm lithely and said, "This is Jarad. With an A."

Bob thought it was strange that he hadn't introduced himself, that Allison had taken the initiative. Maybe he was timid. Maybe she was the one who ran things.They were know-it-alls and no-nonsense and every other hyphenated word that described post-adolescent scrappiness. They were able. They knew what they wanted: Allison about to graduate from Xavier, Jarad from Syracuse, a state and a half away. How'd they met? Friend of a friend, of course. In the technology age, blind dates still held some water, or so Allison'd told Sarah. Allison and her friend dining with Jarad and his friend at some seafood restaurant in the Stix. Six bars and three bottles of Patron later, and she was his to lose. Gentleman that he was though, he took her home and stayed up with her all night, and when she was finally done vomiting up the wine-lobster mix from the evening before, and after Jarad had given her an Altoid for good measure, he kissed her. A nice and simple peck on the lips. Innocent.

"That was when he had me," she said and didn't care about the embellishment. She looked at him fondly, and he supplied an obligatory kiss. They'd made the long distance work, Allison said, and they hadn't looked back since.

When Allison was done telling the story, Bob took a long and deep swig of champagne. The Nicholas Sparks angle just wasn't dying tonight.

Jarad, with his gel-slathered hair and freakishly squared jaw and slightly askew bowtie, seemed more well-adjusted than she did. His own story, revealed by way of a White Russian and a half-bottle of Grey Goose? He was the product of a strict Baptist upbringing: sex and drugs in high school were his form of rebellion, so much so that by the time he left High School his parents had said good riddance. He was putting himself through Syracuse, and Bob had to shake his hand for that.

Bob saw a lot of himself in Jarad. When he figured this out, he took a long drink on his champagne, leaving only a slim puddle at the bottom of the flute. Jarad went to order another round, and Bob watched Sarah and Allison talk. And observed.

Together they were either genuinely braintrusts, or wanted to at least look the part. When Sarah and Allison started talking about Sarah's Fulbright from twelve years ago and the nature of the Yale English Department, Bob suspect the starlit collegiates were the genuine article. Jarad came back with a bottle of champagne in one hand, number three on the night, and set the bottle in the silver ice pitcher at the table's edge. When Bob looked back, Jarad was at the side of the owner, near the piano. He set an easy hand on the owner's shoulder, and the linen-suited bruiser leaned toward Jarad slowly, his brow furrowing as he listened.

The owner smiled, thinly, where the smile lines have been established for years and in the process make crow's feet around the eyes, and went back to the microphone, waiting attentively on its stand.

"Folks," he said, "we've got a request, what do we think of that, eh?"

The nearest tables clapped politely as Harry the Pianist wrapped up the aria, and a corpulent man even said "give the kid what he wants!" and then the rest of the diners and drinkers chimed into support Jarad's New Year's Wish. And he hunched slightly, standing up there, and smiled widely, and was only a little embarrassed. The owner waved his arms to shush the crowd, and then said, "Okay, okay, what's your name, kid?"

"Jarad," he said into the microphone and shot a quick and amorous look at Allison, next to Sarah.

"Jarad," the owner repeated. "Well, Jarad, looks like you get your wish." He turned over one shoulder to Harry the Pianist. "Our friend here wants Bowie. Something romantic." He added after a second: "If Bowie does romantic."

Harry leaned forward and gave the owner a cockeyed look. "There's more to Bowie than Major Tom, boss." He sat back and started in on it, doing the opening guitar part to 'Starman' in middle C.

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	10. Auld Lang Syne

Allison put down her champagne flute and grabbed her dress at the waist—it was too expensive for those bayonet heels of hers to step on—and fluttered to the dance floor. She grabbed Jarad by one hand and led him out to the dance floor. He turned it into a dancer's turn, a swirl movement where one pulls the partner's hand above and around their head, and the partner's dress flows out in the open space.

(Like in the movies)

Bob took another drink and smiled.

Jarad pulled her close and whispered something close to Allison's ear. She looked at him with a lover's look and kissed him. And they kept dancing.

Bob looked over at Sarah, and she was already on her feet.

_Didn't know what time it was the lights were low oh ho  
I leaned back on my radio oh oh  
Some cat was layin' down some rock 'n' roll 'lotta soul, he said_

Then they were next to Jarad and Allison, doing their own dancer's swirl, their eyes locked on each other, Sarah's lips curled into a modest and unhinting Mona Lisa.

_Then the loud sound did seem to fade a ade_

Then Sarah's head was on Bob's shoulder.  
_  
Came back like a slow voice on a wave of phase ha hase  
That weren't no D.J. that was hazy cosmic jive_

Harry the Pianist was joined by someone playing a LesPaul, and Sarah suddenly felt very much at ease.

_There's a starman waiting in the sky  
He'd like to come and meet us  
But he thinks he'd blow our minds  
There's a starman waiting in the sky  
He's told us not to blow it  
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile  
He told me:  
Let the children lose it  
Let the children use it  
Let all the children boogie_

And it was a matter of being at ease around Bob. Totally. The kind of ease that comes from that rarity of rarities, waking up and feeling quite refreshed after a great night's sleep, which she hadn't had since the Fulbright days. Looking out the window and seeing the sunrise and seeing it in a whole new light. Because how many times did people watch the same thing over and over again and because of that lose the ability to see the miraculous? She herself was feeling miraculous right about now. Her lips creased into a thin smile, supremely confident.

_I had to phone someone so I picked on you ho ho  
Hey, that's far out so you heard him too! o o  
Switch on the TV we may pick him up on channel two  
Look out your window I can see his light a ight  
If we can sparkle he may land tonight a ight  
Don't tell your poppa or he'll get us locked up in fright_

She'd wasted so much time on Bryan. On LA. On that stupid little asshole who strung her along for so long. And for what? So he could dump her: throw her under the bus as it were and then add insult to injury by kicking her out.

_There's a starman waiting in the sky  
He'd like to come and meet us  
But he thinks he'd blow our minds_

She was so stupid. And what was the point? What the hell was she doing out there, in that damn bassackwards hellhole of city, in a hellhole of a state? She had no place there.

_There's a starman waiting in the sky  
He's told us not to blow it_

She should have stayed in Minnesota. Lived with David for a while, and put up with that damn wife of his, that lame-ass weakling Judy and her boring old family of friggin Viking immigrants.

_Cause he knows it's all worthwhile  
He told me:  
Let the children lose it  
Let the children use it  
Let all the children boogie_

Even from the outset, she'd wasted a lot of time in Minnesota trying to find someplace that she felt comfortable. Not even some place to fit in—she'd never had troubles with that. Just some place to go and to be herself. That's what Bryan was for.

_Starman waiting in the sky  
He'd like to come and meet us  
But he thinks he'd blow our minds_

He was supposed to make her feel better. That's all Bryan was ever good for. Validation. And then, one fine night on the Sunset Strip, they both had a little too much of just about everything. They'd ended up at his place, a Condo, poorly decorated. There was the booze, and the drugs. And there was her. And there was Bryan, standing like a damn proud pirate, naked at the top of the stairs, the night air washing over every part of him and pissed off neighbors complaining about his glorious lack of decency. Commanding her in his stupid pirate way to come aboard. And she'd thought it was precious. Then.

_There's a starman waiting in the sky  
He's told us not to blow it  
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile_

When they woke up the next morning, Bryan in a pool of his own vomit, face-down on that horrendous herring-bone patterned sofa, his bare ass shining to the world, He rolled over and fell onto the floor, next to her. She'd been curled up in a lame fetal position, woke up hungover. When he rubbed his eyes and scratched his crotch and asked her what she was still doing here, she slapped him across his puke-crusted face and left.

But that was ancient history—she'd tried very hard to let go of that especially rottenest of rotten eggs. Her stupid boyfriend, wrapped up in his own myth. The last gleaming of Sarah Ingqvist's poor life choices. The last sign that the end was near. That she couldn't take it anymore. She'd gotten tired of the jackasses and their parlor tricks. She'd never liked it to begin with. All the jackasses. Her life had been a parade of Homeric suitors courting Penelope, and there was Sarah, waiting for some nameless Odysseus to traipse through the door and kill them all and give her life a little bit of meaning. That's all she'd wanted.

_He told me:  
Let the children lose it  
Let the children use it  
Let all the children boogie_

Was that so much?

The bearded fellow playing the LesPaul at Harry Watson's side got to the descending chorus at the end of the song. Sarah lifted her head from Bob's shoulder, and when she looked in his eyes, she swore they were yellow. Glowing. And she wasn't scared of that.

Her eyes danced to the left. Jarad and Allison were doing the high school prom dance, and Jarad was trying, failing, to lead. She smiled thinly and looked back at Bob.

He'd given her meaning. Simple as that. No other explanation needed.

She kissed Bob, a surprisingly animalistic kiss, where her hands grabbed the side of his face and the tendons on the top of her hands stuck out as she flexed and enjoyed the moment. To his credit, he fought back. That was Bob. Never shied away from a fight. Or so she suspected.

When she pulled back, she said it and didn't even wait. And didn't even care.

"I love you."

And Bob Reynolds, those probing baby-blues, his bronze skin and his hair, perfect and unkempt all at once, looked at her. Deer in the headlights.

Across the bar, Harry the Pianist started in on another Bowie tune, and a slim lady in denims and a crossbar tee-shirt started playing the tenor sax. It was slow and melodic, and she belted out the small solo before Harry's chorus.

He kept saying it was a drive-in Saturday.

Bob wrapped his arms around Sarah and held her close. And they weren't really dancing anymore, after awhile. They were just there, swaying meagerly to the music. Nothing else existed. Bob looked out of the corner of one eye for an instant, long enough to see Jarad give him a mock-salute.

And Bob closed his eyes, squeezing out a tear.

And he could only think of Lindy.

* * *

Jarad tapped Bob on the shoulder at the end of 'Drive-In Saturday', wanting to cut in as Harry the Pianist started in on some song he said was, "Loving Cup, recently exiled on Main Street." Bob was happy to let Jarad dance with Sarah.

He slunk away, back toward the table, and wiped a thin layer of grimy sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He grabbed his champagne flute from the spot in which he'd left it, and polished it off in a single swig. Sat—sunk—back into his seat and unbuttoned his dinner jacket.

Watched Jarad and Sarah laugh their way through 'Loving Cup.' Watched Jarad's perfect teeth shine as his lips slid back when he laughed. The blonde hair shone, reflecting brightly the track lighting on the ceiling. Watched Sarah's dress flow rhythmically as she went. Watched her begrudgingly allow Jarad to lead. Watched Allison disappear in the general direction of the bathroom, which was incidentally close to the bar.

Bob emptied the last of the champagne into his flute, and was drinking it more evenly now.

He felt Reed Richards slide into the open seat behind him. He could smell the plasticity, if it could be called that. He sensed instantly the antiseptic…cleanliness that pervaded Richards, and portended his entrance. The smell and manner of a man who spends his days in a lab and doesn't look like Bill Gates or some string-bean accountant despite that. Bob's head lifted, his eyes narrowed, and he drank as 'Loving Cup' hit the combined piano-guitar solo, and as Jarad dipped Sarah and seemed terribly good at it.

Bob felt Reed Richards lean forward slowly. Cautiously. He took a deep breath.

"She's beautiful," Reed said, simply enough.

"I know." Bob kept watching her dance, and Jarad laughing along with her. They were like brother and sister. Bob smiled thinly at that. And he didn't bother looking back at Reed, who for his part kept talking over Bob's shoulder anyway.

"I'm not going to try to convince you to come back."

"Good," Bob said.

"It's not even that we're getting along fine without you—"

"I expected you would."

"It's that we…Nick and Dr Xavier…Tony and I…we're not going to interfere anymore."

Bob raised an eyebrow at that, and didn't believe it. "I somehow doubt that."

"You're a smart man, Bob," Reed said. "Intelligent. We've…we respect your privacy. That's all I came here to say."

"Then you wasted a bus ticket." Bob was only halfly listening. "What about Johnny?" Bob added, somewhat more sardonic. "Is he still going to be blocking my neighbor's driveway?"

"No. He's coming home with me. Tonight."

"Good."

When the song was over Sarah leaned forward and gave Jarad a polite kiss on the cheek, and his eyes lit up, his face reddened. Embarrased, he only smiled back at her. Sarah turned towards Bob and a waiter gravitated in behind her. The waiter was carrying a tray filled with champagne flutes on it.

Bob stood as Sarah approached them, primping the curls in her hair as she did. He felt Reed behind him following suit.

Bob kissed her and said, "you were great out there."

"Think so?" she said and handed him one flute. "That kid really knows his stuff, I'll tell you that."

"Yep." Bob cast a glance at the bar, and time seemed to slow: Jarad was buying Allison a drink and all she could do was gawk at the bartender, a tall slim number with an almost symmetrical five o'clock shadow. Probably Latino in descent, Bob thought.

_He deserves better, that Jarad. Feel like ruining some souls, Sentry?_

(I thought I told you to leave)

_Yes, because simply wishing things away always works, doesn't it?_

When Bob looked behind him, Reed Richards was gone.

And he didn't even care.

Bob glanced at the clock on the wall, a Roman numeral/Art Deco fusion affair with hideous green neon arms. 11:59. Near the bar, the owner Rene and Harry the Pianist were drunk and counting down from thirty.

Bob grabbed Sarah by the arm and locked eyes with her. Gave a thin and amorous Bob smile, and said quietly, "Happy New Year." And kissed her.

Rene the Owner and Harry the Pianist weren't there. Jarad and Allison, at the bar, aggressively exploring the depths of each others mouths, weren't there. For a moment, no one was there.

Through a recorded version of Auld Lang Syne played over the loudspeakers, time seemed to slow. The voices went away.

Bob opened his eyes when the song hit the refrain, at the same time Sarah opened hers.

"I love you," she said. "And I can't think of what I'd be like if you weren't here."

(Her eyes are brown)

_Christ, Sentry. You have the perception of a blind hawk._

He kissed her back. A quick and passionate one. More Nicholas Sparks. Pulled away.

He looked her up and down, and regretted only for an instant. Regretted not saying it sooner.

"There's something you should know, Sarah. About me."

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	11. A Very Warm Place

_Author's Note_: I had been planning this out for sometime, and the timeliness of 'Secret Invasion' provided me with an elegant way to sort of fit everything together to some previous event in Bob's life that would, by simply having happened, have driven him away from Manhattan and life as The Sentry. So after you read this installment, a few things might be either clearer or muddier for you, compared with the current state of the Marvel Universe. Try to take the events recounted with a grain of apocryphal salt, and, as always, dear readers: happy reading.

* * *

This is Bob Reynolds in the light.

Sitting at the very center of the Sun. A burning ball of energy tooling its way between the Perseus and Sagittarius arms.

And Bob Reynolds? The Sentry? Who has the power of a million of these exploding suckers? He doesn't mind the heat--there's a lot of it--or the pressure--there's a lot of that, too. 13,600,000 degrees Kelvin. Bob did the math quickly and converted that into about 45 million degrees Fahrenheit. And it didn't bother him. He wondered if the amounts of gamma radiation here would have even given Banner a run for his money.

* * *

'The Sentry. It's me', he'd said. The car ride home had been silent, and when they finally got home, Bob simply showed her the costume.

He'd kept it where he always did: in the closet in the master bedroom.

She'd stared at it for a long minute like she knew what it was and who he was, and then looked at him and she got those lines on her forehead of great ponderous worry. Then she'd turned slowly and sort of sauntered out of the house, back to her Land Rover and got in and left. Bob watched her go, watched her pull out of the drive and amble down the street to the stop-sign at the end. She turned left towards town and didn't even use a turn signal.

Bob'd stared after her, out the window, for another long minute. He looked at the suit, still in his arms, and back out the window. The moon was shining brightly: a silver dollar.

Then he put the suit on.

* * *

And then here he was.

_You still haven't answered my question._

(Did I not?)

_Don't play the innocent with me. Answer. The question._

(Which is?)

_You. Thinking you could outrun me. Me._

_Your greatest creation._

(Yes. If you must know.)

_Let me get this straight._

_You thought you._

_Could escape me._

(Yes.)

_I __**am**__ you, Robert Reynolds! Don't you get it?!_

_No, your problem isn't that you don't get it—you do that fine enough. Your problem is that you don't know what to make of it. _

_Your problem is that you don't know what to do about it._

_And because of that, you take everyone else's problems on yourself._

_Why did you tell her? Why in God's green ass did you think you owed Sarah Inqvist honesty—or anyone else for that matter? Do you know who you are?_

(Bob Reynolds.)

_You're the Sentry, goddammit! You don't have time for petty little human convictions like love and longing. End of the day, you do two things and those are all the people remember you for. You smile big and you save people. Nothing else matters. Not honesty, not commitments, not people. The only commitment you need to make is to yourself and to me._

(You know that's not true. I go where I'm needed.)

_You go where you want to go, and that's the sad, selfish fact. Did you ever stop to think that maybe I exist to give you the psychobabble you know you so desperately want? To tell you what you know is true, even if you don't want to hear it. You've got enough quacks and jackasses telling you what to do—always have. But it was really only ever me who gave you what you wanted._

_There's one Sentry and one Void in here. That's gods' plenty. There's no room for Sarah Inqvist and there was certainly never room for Lindy._

(Stop.)

_No! Not this time, Bob. Not until you realize why it is you're so completely fucked up, and so completely unwilling to do anything about that!_

_I am you, Robert Reynolds, and I've even taken to calling you by your slave name to prove my point._

_You need someone to stand up to you a lot of the time and say 'No, this isn't a good idea.' Most people your age have an internal monologue that tells them certain things might be bad ideas: their inner Puritan. You had no such filter and it almost killed you. You remember that?_

_Freshman year at Empire State, you were so goddamn bent on fitting in that you skipped lunch one day and went downtown and made instant friends with some horrible people and bought as much blow as the fifty in your pocket could get you. It was the 80s after all, Dinkins was in charge and a generous grant of General Grant got you more of that shit than you knew what to do with. You went back to school and literally sat on the fifty yard line for those knuckle-dragging linebacker mouth-breathers to stroll out and ask you what the fuck you thought you were doing. It was all you could do to simply jangle the bag in front of them. Then they more or less threw themselves at you, and you were everyone's best friend._

_That was the beginning. You kept it up and kept it hidden from Lindy, until, oops, you sneak into the lab one night looking for a cheap thrill because you're into cheap thrills and down the Sentry serum or whatever the hell they were calling it. And then, with the power of a million exploding so-and-so's..._

_God. You sicken me. You know that?_

_You know how much I had to sacrifice?!_

_Just to keep you halfway sane. _

_I was the bo'sun on that stupid little Jolly Roger. And I let you fucking go. Let you keep buying your shitty blow, and maybe I even egged you on. And then you kept going back to those people downtown._

_Ripping off your parents._

_Missing their funeral because you were too busy making coke deals with your jerkoff fucking linebackers to give a shit._

_And you used to be so good, Bob. You were a star in High School. A star that burned so brightly. And then you threw that away. You threw away a fucking Rhodes Scholarship because…because why? Because you wanted to._

_Because of Lindy? Because you were too busy taking her to Make-Out Creek and trying to woo your way right into those conservative chinos of hers?_

_Or was it because when that Rhodes offer came in the mail, you were too busy doing harder stuff. Jamming a syringe into your arm?_

_I'm not sure anymore._

_Even my own memory is hazy._

_It's the story of your own goddamn life, Sentry: one big ugly Medieval manuscript with massive lacunae. Even today. Even after Emma Frost brought you back.  
_

_It's 1991, and you just found a quiet place on Long Island, and you're sitting there with Lindy, staring up at the Moon and watching its silvery edge reflect off the endless ocean. That was a good day..._

_It's 2005 and Emma Frost's inside your head, uncovering some stupid and horrible memory about The General and Jason Wyngarde fucking with your mind. The General, Bob. Of all the people..._

_It's six months ago and you're in the middle of Times Square. And you see the end, don't you? These Skrulls, these rat bastards that hid out on this worthless little mudball of yours for years…you see them. And you face them down. You fight, and you kill, and you use every last shred of the infernal machine that makes you The Sentry to drive them back. Until it's just the four of you facing an armada of them. You, and the Kree-Skrull hybrid running around with the rest of the pubescent hormonal superheroes, and his little boyfriend who's got more wicked witchery than Stevie Nicks. And there's Stark too, but you have no problem with Stark, because he's Stark and he's seen fit to give you a place in the world and that's important to you. You don't have a problem with any of these people, but you do have a problem with yourself._

_You see it all. There are good people here and they're not going to survive. You see it, because I'm the one who gives it to you, like I gave it to the Hulk all those years ago. A horrible and wonderful glimpse into the future. There's a belligerent homunculus who calls himself K'lrt, and he's leading the enemy troops right down Fifth Avenue on a scorched earth policy. And there's you jamming a lamppost through his head and throwing him like a javelin into the river._

_There's the Hulkling, laying there in a pool of his own blood on the steps of the Baxter Building, and shortly dying. There're the Fantastic Four, then there's Fury and the Avengers, and they're all keeping K'lrt and his legions busy. There's poor little Billy Kaplan, crouched over Teddy Altman's shriveling genetic grab-bag of a body, and he won't stop crying. And you didn't even need me to see how this one ended. There's a beautiful kid here with someone at his side who loves him dearly—the kind of love they don't talk about anymore, the kind of love that doesn't happen anymore, the Halley's Comet of love, that only comes around once in twelve lifetimes—and he's not going to live. And you stand there and you take in every horrible moment of it._

_You watch the genetic abomination—and you can't stop thinking of Teddy as much more—die a horrible death in his lover's arms. You watch poor Billy Kaplan cry and still cradle that dead body in his arms. He keeps saying that he's sorry, and keeps rocking back and forth and you don't know if you should walk up and give him a halfhearted conciliatory pat on the shoulder. If you should play Mister Responsible Hero and help him out here, because you've never had to do anything like this before._

_You're the Sentry. You do smash and grab. That's your bit._

_But Teddy Altman dying is a bridge too far, even for you and especially for the enemy._

_When poor Billy Kaplan finally pulls away from the body, it's long since gone cold, and the heroes are still fighting K'lrt and his legions._

_Billy stands up and his arms go into fists and they shake and his lips quiver. His eyes have been leaking long repressed tears for a long time now, and he stares out at the enemy legions. And you see it in his eyes, in that slightly furrowed brow and the just plain dark look he gives you before he looks back at the people that killed his lover._

_Death._

_He looks at you and his eyes are angry and apologetic. And you swear you hear him say, as he apologises for what he's about to do, "I want them to die."_

_And that doesn't bother you. He gets up and just looks at the enemy legions and they start to melt before his crying eyes. You stand there and watch and you connect your mind to his. You see what he does: he focuses his black magic in on every one of them and makes each one a target. And he makes his black magic burn them alive, like heretics in an unholy land._

_There are Skrull and human bodies, pedestrians caught in the crossfire, liquefying in the streets because of a teenager's anguish, and you don't stop him._

_Deep down you want to, but then you don't, because you want to see what happens. You want to see righteous anger inflicted on someone who deserves it for once, and you want to see the enemy utterly destroyed, even if the omelette is worth breaking a lot of eggs._

_Because deep down you're not a nice person, Bob._

_And deep down, you know this._

_You also know that one day everyone you know and love is going to die, if they haven't already, and this doesn't bother you as much as the knowledge that you yourself will die. _

_And you __**are**__ going to die. Very hard. _

_I'm going to be the one who drives the pitch-black knife into your heart of hearts. And, when that happens we'll both go down to Hell where we belong, Sentry. _

_No one will be there to stop it._

_Because you're going to end up all alone. And you know something?  
_

_You want it that way._

_This is my greatest victory, Sentry, and you gave it to me on a silver platter. _

_You. Alone. _

_Null._

_Void._

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	12. Do You Get It Yet?

Bob lifted out of the Sun's core and near the corona sped up. He shot out at a speed that surprised himself, leaving a solar flare that arced out brilliantly for a moment, then shuddered under its own strength and settled back down to the sphere.

He would be back home in eight minutes.

An eternity.

* * *

**Six months ago: **

_There's the Super-Skrull, back on side with people he should hate by now, for all they've done to him. People who didn't even recognize him for saving what was left of their empire. Twice._

_And there're the Young Avengers, a contingent of them anyway: the little brunette calling herself Hawkeye, Patriot, the mage and his boyfriend, the latter in his Hulkling form. And there's you, Bob. And Carol Danvers in her sluttiest Ms Marvel jumpsuit to date. And Ares, God of War. And Stark. Always Stark._

_There's Kl'rt giving some winded elegy about coming to serve the interests of his people once more. It's more of the same from him: ladder-climbing tripe from an anachronism given life, with no real plan as to how really get what he wants._

_Then there's Kl'rt and Hulkling diving for each other, and the force is enough to shatter every window in three blocks. Strangely, none of the heroes seem affected._

_There's Hulkling knocking Kl'rt a mile up the street, to the very front of the Baxter Building. Before the Super-Skrull could even stand, Teddy slammed into him and ripped his arm off, tossing the flaming remnant away indiscriminately. And then Teddy unleashed. Started beating Kl'rt to death._

_With an unstoppable fury._

_Like never before._

_You know what that is, Sentry._

_Teddy, the Kree-Skrull hybrid, stands away, and Kl'rt supports himself on one elbow, still laying down on the entablature._

_"This world," Teddy says. "Is not yours to conquer. It never was."_

_"Fool," Kl'rt says, and his remaining arm bursts into flame. He lifts it slowly so Teddy can see it. The Super-Skrull's flaming arm went pliant for a moment, and he was at once both Reed Richards and Johnny Storm, and then wrapped itself around Teddy's throat._

_And constricted._

_Teddy's eyes bulged, and the tears came almost instantly, and burned away in Kl'rt's flaming grip._

_"How wrong you are," Kl'rt said, and watched life leave Teddy Altman. Watched him burn and suffocate. Tightened his grip, and his lips thinned. His teeth gritted against each other, and he was silently begging the hatchling to die._

_Kl'rt released his fiery grip, and stood. He raised an alien eyebrow and tiny slivers of light materialized in the air. He bent them to the right light, and Teddy, quickly dying, saw them for what they were. Kl'rt's the Invisible Woman now._

_Kl'rt willed one of the light blades forward, and it caught Teddy across the neck. He spun in place so that he landed on his back, reverted to his human form, and made a horrible gurgling sound, and clutched greedily at his neck, trying desperately to contain the blood spilling out._

(Stop it.)

_Stark lands a second later: Carol Danvers and Ares, God of War are behind him, and all three have streaks and spots of green blood all over. The three of them are standing uneasy on one side of Teddy's curled and dying body, you and Billy the Mage on the other side._

_Billy runs to Teddy's dying side immediately, and wipes the blood and sweat away from his lover's face. He starts rocking back and forth with Teddy in his arms, and that's the end of all things for you. When Billy starts saying 'come back, come back'. When you don't do anything, Sentry. You know precisely why, too._

_You felt me inside you, and that absolutely terrified you, because you're afraid to embrace it._

(I said STOP IT.)

_At the time of Teddy Altman's death, though, Ares pulls off his Attic helmet and drops it on the ground, his axe too. You swear you see his lips quiver for a moment, swear you see the humanity in a god, but then it vanishes as quickly. Carol Danvers in her slutty Ms Marvel suit focuses her weight on one leg and wipes the tears away from her eyes—her domino mask long since obliterated by battle._

_And Stark. Poor Tony Stark pulls off his helmet too, and takes Carol in his arms and holds her close so she looks away like a crying damsel._

_They all know what's about to happen, having recently seen it with another talking anachronism, this one full of Americana and patriotic mucous._

_Do you see what I'm getting at yet?_

(STOP!)

_There's you, back in the past, grabbing a lamppost with such lazy aim and throwing it at Kl'rt and it hits him anyway, because you're the Golden Guardian and marksmanship is an added bonus. The broken end of the lamppost strikes true indeed, and goes right through the Super-Skrull, almost precisely in the center of the sternum or it's Skrull equivalent. He looks at the thing sticking out of his chest and then at you, and coughs up blood, and doesn't believe what's just happened to him. You grab the lamppost and pull it up in the air and toss it up once. You hover there for a second and when the Skrull-impaled post falls again within your reach, you grab the killer by the bloody stump that was his right arm. Your other arm you lock around his neck so your fingers dig deep into the intersection of his neck and his spine._

_Then you rip his fucking head off, the hard way, where the tendons just refuse to snap free, but since you're the Golden Guardian you keep pulling anyway._

_The body, you let fall back in the river. The head, you toss in your hand like you're weighing an apple at the damn market. You look into the dead eyes, the expression was Kl'rt's last: a grin, but only on one side of his mouth, the grin of self-satisfaction, despite or maybe even because of his own death._

_You crush the head in your hands and wipe the brain stew on your leg, and you have a scowl on your face that'd do even me proud. But you're not scared of me showing up because, hey, it's righteous anger and how could that possibly be the province of The Void?_

_Think! You justified killing a guy, Skrull or otherwise, because he had it coming._

_Do you see my point yet? You see why I'm here? What I'm trying to do?_

_Then you fly back to the Baxter Building's front steps, just in time to see Billy unleash. Just enough time to see him use his mind and his powers to melt every Skrull in ten blocks into piles of bubbling green goo. He falls to his knees and runs a shaking hand through his hair. You sit down next to him and its all you can do to give him a hug._

* * *

**Now:**

_And that's how it is, Sentry._

_You didn't do anything to stop Teddy or Kl'rt and it just about destroyed you. You could have made Kl'rt into a green-colored Slurpee long before he even started talking to Teddy, and you didn't. You blew through Attuma once, hell, what's another would-be conqueror? But no, you just sit there and hang out and look powerful because you're a fucking moron, you know that?_

_Tony Stark built a suit of iron in a cave, from scraps! The first thing he did when he got out was to kill his captors, burn them alive for what they did to him._

_Steve Rogers punched Hitler in the face and did his fair share of Nazi-killing back in the Greatest Generation, and even that's okay because everyone loves to hate a Nazi._

_And the very first thing you did after you found out you had powers? You ran off and freaked out and maybe even cried a bit._

_You could have rocked some worlds before Teddy Altman died—not to mention after what happened to Lindy—but you sat there and played the hero role. Too afraid to unleash, to afraid to lighten up even for a moment._

_Too afraid to live._

_You spent so much time being a hero that you forgot what it was to be a human!_

_Are you even listening?!_

_Jason Wyngarde stole your mind! He took your life away from you, and you never got to strike back for that. A more rational person would go Cromwell on his dead ass, Sentry. Dig him up and drag him through the streets. Use some more of that justified anger, and not just because you know it sustains me._

The Void materialized out of nothing in front of Bob, high above Venus' ecliptic: a body the same size of Bob's, with the same face and the same frailties, staring at him with apologetic and stern authority. Eyes black as aces, skin the color of burned ash, enveloped in a horrible black penumbra.

_"Do you understand yet?"_

Bob locked eyes with the reflection. "No."

The Void lifted its devil-black hands, outlined in veiled ephemera and darkness, and touched Bob's face, and the grip was paralyzing and cold. The dark reflection leant forward and kissed Bob. When it pulled away and spoke Bob saw the lips move, and only heard the voice in his head, like broken glass, like nails on a chalkboard, like the anguished screams of an animal in its death throes. The fury of a hurricane in the body of a man.

_"You can't run away, Bob. You never could. And now you know what has to happen. You must go back, because you feel you must. "_

"You don't control me anymore."

_"You only allowed me to. You could have shut me out just as easily as you let me in. Do you get it yet?"_

Bob exploded and matched The Void's penetrating darkness with an aura of blinding yellow that made the shadow shrink back. And suddenly he was The Sentry, in his brilliant form and unexplained function. Thunderously, he yelled, "What?! There's nothing to understand!" Quieter, exasperated, rubbing his temples: "There's nothing left…"

_"There is me. Stare in, Sentry, and I stare back. Nietzsche. You thought I was the end of the world? What foolishness. You have only believed me to be the end of your world. Do you see?"_

Weakly, Sentry said, "No."

_"You have only believed me to be your greatest villain. I am only your greatest asset."_

"I don't believe you," Sentry said and his eyes glowed straight yellow, the color of suns and life.

_"Robert Reynolds is a weak man, an emotional cretin. The Sentry is a capable hero, a savior, humanity's only hope. The Void is all else and nothing else. Alpha and Omega. Capable and frail. I too have good and bad days, as Robert does. And you know something?" _The ephemeral face seemed to lengthen, depressed. _"I have only tried to make you what you should be, Robert. You have cast me out like an unwanted gift."_ Contemptuously, it added: _"Golden Boy."_

Sentry's eyes took on their natural blue color again, and he looked into the shadow with a sickly gaze. "What?"

_"I am your greatest asset, Sentry. I tried to make you better. Tried to turn you from a cringing man-god into a thing of beauty and power. This is therapy that surpasses anything Dr Worth can do for you. Anything Tony Stark can do for you. I am you, Sentry. And since I've been in your head these past six months while you finally succeeded in finding yourself, some remarkable things happened, didn't they?"_

"Yes."

_"Do you feel mentally diseased? Anymore?"_

"It doesn't just go away," Sentry said. "You know that."

_"But you're in a better place now."_

Sentry had to agree with that.

_"And you think now that you have no further use for me?"_

Sentry looked up to his shadowy reflection. The dark face was emotionless, the red eyes unmoving.

"I…do."

The ash-burned face smile thinly and slowly, and the black veil dissipated. The gritted-chalkboard voice, the sound of death and misery, the quiet fury, spoke in a sinister and tempered rhythm.

_"Agreed…"_

Bob hovered about Venus' ecliptic for another two hours.

That had really just happened. Didn't it?

He frowned when he didn't hear a voice back, and his jaw slackened an inch.

"Is it over?"

The vacuum gave no response.

* * *

**_Continued..._**


	13. Like You Always Did

Bob landed on the front lawn and did so slowly, breathing deeply and rhythmically as he went. Streaks of light zigzagged across the spade-black sky, outliers of cityborn light pollution about which Bob was told he should care.

He eased down to the deck. When his right foot—he always flew with the left leg bent closer in—touched the bricks in the walkway, the landing was soft and his cape fluttered down to hang about his shoulders, and kept swaying in the morning breeze. He turned around slowly, hearing the slow gurgle of a garden hose, and stared into the Healey's front lawn. There was Daniel Walter keying into his car, fishing out some damn thing he needed for some damn reason at 2 in the morning. And there was Bob staring back at him with a face that Bob hadn't worn since…

_Since you punched Dr Doom in the face and ripped his mask off, which served the doubly amusing purpose of emasculating the poor bastard in front of fucking Spider-Woman of all people. Way to go, Sentry._

That was true, Bob supposed. Things were a little different now. The morning breeze made the cape swing lazily as it hung from his shoulders, his hair was slicked back in its Sentry way and Bob held his head down, which made his forehead look bigger and his eyes only a little more foreboding. It was his way of being menacing without really being menacing. That's how he looked at Daniel Walter Healey, the obstinate and now completely befuddled neighbor.

With his Sentry scowl.

Daniel Walter's sagging features quivered. "Bob?"

Bob rolled his eyes and turned back toward the house.

He pushed the front door open quietly and shut it with the same minimal effort. He had one foot on the first step upstairs, and his hand on the banister, and looked to the left, toward the den, when he felt something wasn't right. The green-shaded banker's lamp on the desk gave off minimal light, and the fireplace against the far wall was crackling gently.

Sarah was standing by the mantle, with one hand held out toward the flames to feel the warmth, and Bob couldn't tell if she was staring at herself in the mirror, or at him, or at the urn in the center of the shelf.

She turned around slowly. She was wearing a Darthmouth hoodie, even though she'd never been, and khaki shorts that sat high on her hips. Her arms were slung low in the hoodie's stomach pouch, her hair was pulled back simply, her glasses barely hung on her nose, and she looked overall as if she'd just woken up. Or hadn't slept.

Bob stared at her nervously, and then looked around the rest of the room. His jaw clenched and his head bobbed nervously. He felt slightly stupid still wearing the Sentry suit.

"You gave me a key," she said, and turned away from the mantle. "I'm sorry."

He folded his arms over his chest. "You came back."

"Yeah."

"What is this supposed to be?" he asked and felt slightly sociopathic at having asked it.

She locked sad and deep eyes on him. "I'm sorry I left. I came back to apologise."

Immediately, Bob started in: "I told you because I loved you, Sarah. You left because you didn't take me seriously. So do you want me to prove to you just how powerful I am? Or how much I care about you that I would risk bringing you into a life that's only ever brought me pain and trouble?"

"No," she said. "You never lied before, Bob, so it would be stupid not to believe this one thing. You never had to prove anything to me, and you don't have to prove anything now. You don't have to blow up a planet or whatever it is you do just to get me to understand this."

He sighed quickly, annoyed, and his eyes glanced around the room as he collected his thoughts. Then he looked at her and was civil. "I told you…what I told you was in confidence and you ran away. You didn't even say anything. You just up and left. And you had no right to." It was a remarkable moment of strength for Bob. Six months ago he probably would not have had the willpower to stand up to someone like that.

Her head lifted slowly as she looked from the fire to Bob. Her eyes narrowed and Bob saw her jaw clench. He'd pissed her off with the 'no right' bit.

He shook his head and his muscles, all over, tightened again. He took a deep breath, and said, "I've loved you since I met you. That's the way I've always been, my whole life. There's only ever been one other person in my life who I love as much as I love you, and what's left of her is sitting inside that urn on the mantle."

Sarah flashed a glance back at the urn and then looked at Bob and was really apologetic now. He went on: "In 33 years. My whole life. And I love you enough to let you in on this one secret. This thing about me that's cost me almost everything I am. Before you, there was only one other person who really understood what I am and what it means, and she's dead now because I didn't have enough respect for her." Somewhat more sullen: "I never told you that. And I never told her."

Sarah's eyes darted around the room for a moment. She swallowed and then said, "I, uh…I'm sorry."

Bob said, morosely: "I only gave you the truth." His eyes darkened when he paused. "Was that so god-damned much?"

"Look," she said and was suddenly frank. "It's not every day the man you love pulls you aside in a public place and tells you he's a superhero. Okay? How did you think I was going to react? Give you a hug and say 'oh darling, it's so perfect?'"

_Lindy said that. Long ago. Small world, ain't it?_

She said, "I love you, Bob. Period, end of story. I'd go anywhere with you. But I don't know what to make of all this. I mean, we came into each other's lives at a—at a providential time, you know? It was great, and I thought we were enjoying each other. And then this comes out of left field and you expect me to be okay with it?"

He said nothing and slowly walked closer to her and held out his hand. Its color was rich and warm and the invitation was an unspoken one for Sarah to take his hand in hers.

"You really don't believe me, do you? You think I picked this up from a Halloween store?"

"I never said that, Bob."

He ran one hand through his hair and slunk into the leather sofa, and Sarah followed suit in a prim way.

She said with sanguinity as Bob stared at the fireplace: "You never told me you had a wife."

Pause.

"Lindy," he said. "We met in college."

"You loved her a lot."

He smiled and supposed that was true. "Once upon a time."

He stood and eased Sarah's hand out of his and looked at the urn, head cocked imperceptibly to the side, and was calm for once in his life.

Replayed that day out on Long Island in his mind.

"_How many women have you brought out here, Bob?"_

He'd had ten years to think of a good response to that, better than the one he'd given her, that sassy 'I have to show Lindy this' bit, romantic and sappy as it was.

_That was a good day…_

He eyes went from the urn back to the fireplace and his smile left. His eyes lost the glazed look from the nostalgia. Then he turned to her and spoke clearly and cleanly.

"Sarah," he said and his head dipped forward slightly. "Will you come with me?"

"Where?"

He held out a warm hand, and Sarah took it on instinct. He said, "I want to show you something."

Her lips hung open, but only for a moment. Then he said, "Close your eyes" and she did that too.

Even behind tightly shut lids, she swore the world got very bright for a moment. And then very cold. When Bob told her to open her eyes, she felt the night breeze and shivered. She looked down and her jaw slacked at the lighted latticework of Manhattan At Night.

She gasped and hugged Bob close.

"What…what happened?"

"We're a half-mile above the city," he said calmly. "Try to breathe."

"What did you do, sweetie?"

"I also do teleportation." He looked down: her tennis shoes were resting on his boottops like a young girl balancing on her father's shoes. Bob ran a warm hand up the side of her face and she rested her head against his shoulder. "It's alright."

She loosened a bit and looked at the city beneath her, and then at him, into his beautiful baby blues, and felt horrible for even doubting him.

"Sweetie, I'm sorry."

He merely kissed her forehead and held her closer. "I'll take you down."

He'd left this hellhole with a good god-damned reason, but now he was back. Back to show her a few things. Why he left. Why he'd been here in the first place. Why he was back to find something he wasn't sure he lost in the first place.

He'd been angry. Justifiably angry.

They tried to destroy him.

Maybe they even succeeded a little bit. But he survived, like he always did. He proved them wrong, like he always did. And he didn't buckle under the pressure, not even when they destroyed his city, killed his friends.

Impersonated his wife.

He kissed Sarah again and looked toward the city, surprisingly quiet, shimmering in the dead of night. In the distance, yellow brilliance came to life around the spindly arms of the Watchtower, perched indefinitely above Stark Tower. As if to herald his arrival, it had blinked back into existence.

He narrowed his eyes, took a deep sigh, and started the descent toward Herald Square.

He'd take her past the Baxter Building first…

* * *

_Concluded..._


	14. You Know

_**Author's Note:**_ In the interest of annotations, I present you with a few asides: there really is an Oscar de la Renta on Madison Avenue. Sarah's cackles are based on Edna Krabappel of 'The Simpsons'. The panoramic entrance to Stark Tower is a nod to the eponymous second arc of Bendis' 'New Avengers' dealing with The Sentry. Also, the locations of the Baxter Building and the ruins of Avengers Mansion, I've attempted to mesh as closely as possible with their in-universe locations; any mistake is mine alone. Finally, my continued thanks to you, readers, for keeping this latest endeavor of mine alive. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have, and I hope this last installment is a small step in the right direction as regards realigning Bob Reynolds with the rest of the Marvel Universe in some meaningful ways. So, thank you again, and as always, happy reading...

* * *

The Baxter Building stood at the end of the street, shining like the rest of the city. Its lights and lobby, Bob saw, burning with electric vigor like the rest of the city.

He took a deep breath, and was nervous. The sort of calm nervous where the jaw tightens and gives way to a headache and the look on the face is severe and worried. Where you feel like you don't know what's going to happen in the very next moment, and the fact that you don't even want to find out worries you even more. Where, when that's happened, all you have left is yourself to be the one thing constant and undying. And even that's untenable.

That's Bob Reynolds life, or was. So he tells himself now, and has been telling himself since last Halloween.

He left once already, was forgotten by the people of this planet, to forestall inevitable doomsday. Then he came back, and with him the Void—the unleashed fury, the inevitable doomsday. And he faced that down. With some help.

He shook his head as he thought about it. He always needed help.

Bob thought about it as they flew past the Oscar de la Renta boutique on Madison Avenue. It was coming up on three in the morning, and even (maybe especially) for this part of town, the streets were surprisingly dead. Bob wondered only for a moment where everyone had gone, and then took a deep and relaxed breath. Almost no one on Manhattan's busy streets for once. It was nice.

He sighed, and noticed from his peripheral that Sarah was looking at him, giving the 'are you okay' look. He forced a smile and gave her a peck on the cheek.

She looked forward at the Baxter Building. "What is that?" she asked and pointed with the hand that wasn't latched around Bob's waist.

"The Baxter Building," he said and the nostalgia came in an unwelcome wave. "Invisible Woman, world famous Fantastic Four. Any of that ring a bell?"

"Sort of," she said and her brow furled. "Johnny Storm?"

"Yep."

She gave a monosyllabic cackle at that.

Bob asked, "What?"

"Nothing," she said and was still amused. "Ten years ago, we were all nuts about him."

"Ten years ago," Bob said and tried to play it off slyly. "He wasn't even eighteen, you know."

"And I was still a bright-eyed college co-ed," she said and smiled. "A girl can dream."

Bob hooked a left turn just before the Baxter Building, getting close enough for Sarah to see, and then took a new path. Below them, the foot traffic seemed to pick up. Pedestrians stopped in their tracks and looked at the duo tooling down the street. Some curious, some giddy, as if The Sentry were an elusive celebrity, a superpowered Salinger, and being stared at by a civilian subset that was quiet and maybe even a little affright.

Coming up in the distance, Sarah saw uniform-brown brick walls lining one side of the street. Here there was no foot traffic, no automobiles, nothing to speak of technology in this strange and deserted part of midtown. A spade-black wrought iron gate with a baroque capital 'A' in the center bisected the brick wall, and across the street from that, there was a single oak tree and a latticework park bench underneath.

There was a Mansion beyond the gate, utterly destroyed, its ceiling caved in on the rest of structure, the darkness from it yawning out into the courtyard. Bob flew up and over the gate, and landed between it and a group of stone statues in multifarious stances and crouches.

She recognized some of them.

Captain America. And the Iron Man statue, with its defiant stance and perfect posture and single hand thrown forward in the Gandalf shall-not-pass way. Then she looked at the collapsed mansion for a long moment.

Statues of heroes, living and dead. A ruined old house. Two and two, she thought.

"Avengers Mansion." And then she looked at. "Right?"

He looked at her and nodded.

"I heard the stories," Sarah said. "A rogue Avenger, huh?"

"She was a friend of theirs."

Pause. Sarah looked from one end of the walled-in complex to the other—it took up the city block—and then at Bob. "You…brought me to a mausoleum."

"I wanted to prove a point," he said and his eyes locked on the Captain America statue. "I would never want to put you in any situation you couldn't handle."

"You're asking," she said and measured the words, "if I still want to be part of this?"

"Yes."

She hugged him close, so her head was up against his chest where she could feel the heartbeat. "Sweetie," she said and looked into his eyes and was sincere again. "You don't have to worry about me."

* * *

A hundred feet over Stark Tower, in the deepest and darkest part of the SHIELD Helicarrier's conference rooms, private offices and branch labs, Nick Fury sat alone in a darkened room in a simple chair, in front of a simple televisual display.

Bob Reynolds—The Sentry—fraternizing with a civilian in the middle of a locked territory. What had once been Avengers Mansion. His remaining eye narrowed and shallow lines curved across his face.

He rolled the cigar from one end of his mouth to the other, and let out a deep breath.

And opened the line to Stark Tower.

* * *

Bob was flying low up Eighth Avenue, nearing Columbus Circle and Stark Tower, and his heart rose in his chest when it didn't need to. He was the Sentry after all. The Golden Guardian of Good. He didn't need to sleep, didn't need to eat, his heart probably didn't even need to pump blood. He still didn't feel good about this decision, this tour of New York in the dead of night business.

This was the nervousness of coming home.

Stark Tower loomed with its monochrome silver-grey finish, its sleek façade screaming modernity and power and loftyness and everything else that sounded good in life, and at its peak the Watchtower was brilliant: a welcome home beacon. For better or worse.

He flew in close to the exterior and the building seemed to angle back away from them as Bob went upright, following the frontage up toward the roof. His head and Sarah's both craned back at the maximum, staring up at the building as it kept reaching. Kept going for the sky.

In no time they reached the top, the roof, the point at which Stark's ingenuity stopped and Robert Reynolds' began.

When Bob had resurfaced as the Sentry—when someone posing as Matt Murdock came into Ryker's asking for Bob's help, when Bob flew Cletus Kassady into space and ripped his deserving ass in half, when these new Avengers were in their infancy—the Watchtower also reappeared over Stark Tower.

It was fate. Serendipity. God's providence.

Something.

And now it was something that Bob Reynolds, the Sentry, was setting down, landing on one of Stark Tower's tripartite landing platforms that formed the building's roof and also served as the main entrance to the Watchtower.

Fifty yards ahead the Watchtower and its deathly blackness seemed to ram straight into the roof. The wall was spade-black and made up one such foundation strut. Sarah watched as a thin line of bright light started at one end and worked its way across the top and down the other side, forming a panoramic door. A moment later, noiselessly, the panel slid open and the brilliant yellow light from within was suddenly everywhere. A group of bodies stepped out from the light, and the panel slid closed just as quickly.

Tony Stark in black trousers and a white button-down, looking genuinely surprised to see Bob. Reed Richards, fumbling with another contraption dreamed of in his REM-sleep. Charles Xavier, in a corduroy brown three-piece, Wolverine at his side. Cool, cruel Natalia Romanova, the Black Widow, in a length black jumpsuit that adhered to all the right curves.

The…unity…surprised Bob. Ten months ago they were ready to kill each other if it meant rooting out a Skrull impostor. And now they were all here, either because they had genuinely mended fences, or were only here as a favor to someone.

His eyes danced across the group.

"Tony," he said and hesitated. "A word?"

Stark and Richards both stepped away from the group and the rest retreated onto the platform, and were gone. Richards stared at the flat grey landing deck a moment longer, then walked toward Sarah. "My name is Reed," he said and then his eyes roved for a moment. "You must be hungry."

Wearily she said, "I am," and fell in tow behind him.

They watched her follow Richards inside, into the blinding yellow of the Watchtower itself, watched the panel slide shut again. Then Stark said: "So your vacation was profitable, I see."

Bob leaned against the railing, his posture slackened and he looked out thoughtfully at the city. "This wasn't a vacation. I left. I fully intended to stay there."

"So why come back?"

"Two reasons. I wanted to show her I was telling the truth." Pause. More apprehensively: "And I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it."

"How'd she take it?"

"Not well," he said simply and then corrected. "We're working on it."

Stark leaned against the railing, too, but the opposite direction, with his back to the city. So he could keep staring at his building and the Watchtower. He took a deep breath, and released it. "Anything else?"

Bob looked Stark square in the eyes. "Since you asked." Pause. "The Void won't be bothering me. Not anymore, I think."

"You're sure about that?"

Bob looked down over the railing and his eyes tracked up the avenue. An ambulance was tooling up the street, its sirens at full-blare. "We talked about it. I admitted that whatever the Void…is to me, or for me, or whatever, I admitted that I need that aspect of my life. In my life. He must've come to the same conclusion." Pause. Then, more judiciously, maybe even a little sad: "That was two nights ago. I haven't heard him since then. Inside my head. You know."

Stark looked unimpressed, and his face still had that worried look. "The Void always loved mind games. Can you be sure he's gone for good?"

Bob's jaw clenched. "I saw it in his eyes," he said. "Anyway…I stopped him before. I can stop him again." And he meant the last part. With every inch of himself, he meant it. He craned his neck slightly, mostly for the whimsy of it. Through walls made of a vibranium-adamantium alloy that took his months to master, Bob could hear Sarah deriding Reed Richards. He smiled briefly, at Sarah's scrappiness and at his own willpower with Stark just now.

"Fair enough," Stark said. "Anything else you want to tell me?"

Bob looked at the starry night, and waited for it. "The mental ghosts Xavier's inside talking about right now are gone. They're not coming back." Pause. "Bob Reynolds and The Sentry learned to coexist. And…The Void learned to deal with it. Maybe." Pause, more calmly, looking at Stark now: "And for the first time in twelve years I'm actually going to be able to live with myself. Try to take this for exactly what it's worth, Tony. But your Golden Guardian is back. For good."

Tony nodded his head, his eyes roved in their sockets, and he thought judiciously of his next move, which ended up as him simply saying, "Okay."

* * *

Richards had led Sarah to a long and dark room at the end of a hallway. It had a giant art deco clock mounted high opposite a panorama-window in six panels that comprised the eastern wall. The table was a solid shape in solid oak, impossibly carved from a single piece, and the chairs were high-backed squared affairs. A bowl of Granny Smith apples sat in the exact center of the table.

A dining room. A freaking dining room.

The bald man from before, up on the roof, was sitting at the head of the table and sipping every second or so from a teacup made of Her Majesty's Finest Bone China. His face was blank and calm, his eyebrows angled sharply. Sarah cased him quickly and silently, and the only thing she could dislike him for was the hideous Windsor knot in which he had his tie fixed.

"Please, sit down," Richards said, and she did, at the bald Windsor man's right-side. Richards sat at Windsor's left. A heavy and balding man in a tuxedo slid behind Richards, carrying a tray with two more teacups on it. He handed one to Sarah and one to Reed, who only said, "Thank you, Jarvis." The butler slid away and Richards looked after him, waited until he was gone and then looked at Sarah.

"So," Richards said, breathed out and forced a smile. In that order. "Sarah."

"How do you know my name?"

His eyes darted to Windsor. "This," Richards said, "is Charles Xavier. He's a telepath."

"So you just read my mind?"

"Yes. My name is Reed Richards—"

"I know who you are, Dr Richards."

Xavier said, "We're friends of Robert's."

"He's never mentioned you," she said to Xavier, who in return said, "That's quite all right."

"So let me get this straight," she said. "I'm supposed to do…what? Sit here and listen to you tell me what I already know?"

Richards folded his hands on the table. "No point in dawdling, I see," he said, "Then I'll just get to it. Frankly, there's been a lot of speculation in our community as to what Bob's been up to in his time away. Since he's back, we want to assess any needs or risks that may have come up."

"Okay," she said. _And what if there aren't any risks, you officious—_

"For my own part," Richards went on, "I want to make sure you know what's at stake." After a pause, he added: "Do you, Sarah?"

"Possibly," she said. "He mentioned you. You were the one that had him forgotten to begin with, Dr Richards." Then she smiled a bit. "Weren't you?"

"There's more to it than that. Bob was a threat to himself and to others, and we were trying to save lives."

Xavier leaned forward: "The world was at stake, Ms Ingvist. You must realize that."

She sat back in her seat, sighed, and ran a finger around the rim of the teacup idly. "Look, I'll save you the effort of giving the big speech." Her eyes went to Richards. "There's nothing you can tell me I don't already know. Bob told me all of it, as a matter of fact about fifteen minutes into the New Year, okay? The drugs, the serum he stole, his first wife, whatever the hell Skrulls are. He spent an hour telling me about this Void thing that had him spooked. All of it. Everything. Including the time you had him forgotten, Dr Richards, and then when you did it again—when, if I remember correctly, this Void thing took the form of a counter-clockwise hurricane bearing down on Liberty Island?"

"Yes," Richards said, and his voice lacked any kind of humanity behind it.

Xavier jumped in: "Ms Inqvist. Robert is a superhero, first and foremost. And in our line of work, we take certain risks associated with who we are and what we do. We come home late at night, or sometimes not at all. We fight people regularly, people who have the means to destroy our lives, our families and ourselves. My question—and I think I speak for Dr Richards as well in this regard—is this. Do you understand that?"

She took another sip of the Ceylon, still trying to be polite, sat back in her chair and mulled it over. She looked at Richards and then at Xavier.

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't be here right now. Is that a satisfactory answer for you, Professors?" She looked from Xavier to Richards. "I love Bob. With my heart of hearts," she said and meant it. "And if you don't believe me, maybe you should ask him."

Xavier glanced at Richards, his brow furrowed.

She spoke: "I mean, what's your angle, Professors? Trying to give me cold feet, to dissuade me from the superhero crowd? Or could it be that you think my being here is gonna bring back this Void thing? Am I some harbinger of doom to you?"

"It's not that at all," Richards said and his mouth was hidden behind steepled fingers.

"Then what is it?" she said. "Frankly, Professors, I think you're the ones that don't understand him. That man out there has been fighting for his life, every day of his life, and you people haven't even given him room to breathe! IChrist, if this is the kind of judgment he gets for being sick, I really understand why he left now."

Richards said nothing, and leant back in his seat and stared at his teacup on the table. He hadn't touched it since Jarvis set it down.

"And he is sick," she said. "And you know it and you just keep pushing him and you know that, too! He needs real psychological help, not a bunch of false friends pretending to do what's best for him. And that's really the only thing any of you have done, isn't it? I know that much." Then she calmed. "And you know where you can stick this 'we care about Bob' bit. Because I don't want to see him hurt anymore. Period."

She sat and finished off the Ceylon with a single swig.

And wondered who she was really lashing out at.

"Now," she said and kept up the charade, "do you want to ask me again if I 'understand' him?"

Xavier stood as he spoke: "Robert is a trusted colleague. I have no doubt that his time away has put him in a better state of mind, but…Sarah, the mind is a beehive with a million interlocking parts. Some part of it remembers everything it touches. My concern is that his old demons will resurface as well and ruin everything he's worked to build. I want to be sure that he can come back to the life he deserves."

"A life of significance," Richards said and changed his tune. "You can give him that, Sarah."

She closed her eyes and sighed. And stood.

They hadn't heard a word.

"I already have," she said, and turned to leave.

* * *

Three minutes later, she was out on the balcony again, and there was only Bob there leaning against the railing, one arm holding up his head and his chin, and he was staring out at the city and the skyline.

She was quiet approaching him, imagining the handsome and weather-worn look on his face as he stood there thinking, the one he got every so often when the nights were clear and he'd just stare out the window like he was seeing everything for the first time. She wondered if this was one of those moments, and how sheepishly romantic that'd be.

"Bob?"

He turned around slowly, and his hair (it was short and blonde and perfect) was stiff and stylized at the frontal hairline, but it still managed a little leeway in the night breeze. He smiled, as perfect, and slowly and it was like he was seeing her for the first time, too.

She was a foot away from him now and he said in a very quiet and unoffending way, "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm good. I don't think your Dr Richards likes me, though."

"What did you do?"

She waved a passive hand and said, "Oh, I told him off."

Bob smiled at that, and it was a slow and genuine smile, the kind that creeps across the face. Then he said, "I heard."

"Yeah. I know."

"I have to say," Bob said and shook his head lightly. "I've seen Reed weather a lot of abuse. He can handle it when it comes from his best friend, and even from his wife. But, believe it or not, the only person to really stop him dead in his tracks as much as you did was Johnny Storm."

She snickered. "Another thing our fiery friend and I have in common." Then she said, "I guess it was a little unwarranted. I mean, what did this Richards ever do to me?"

"I wouldn't worry. Next week Reed'll be off in the Negative Zone or some pocket universe and won't have time to remember what you just did. And anyway, it was a nice telling-off, I thought. You stood up for me."

One of her eyebrows shot up. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"No," Bob said. "Just something I'm not used to."

Pause. She looked around again and when she saw none of Bob's superhero people she said, "Look," and then trailed off.

"What is it?"

"I'm glad you brought me out here. Up here. Wherever here is."

"You're an important part of my life," Bob reasoned. "You have a right to know that."

"Bob," she said simply and glanced from side to side as she did. "I don't know what to make of all this. I mean, I've known for years that a guy named Tony Stark exists and that he's richer than God and his two sisters. I idolized Johnny Storm in college. But this. This is up close and personal, horse's mouth stuff, Bob." She sounded worried. Outclassed by the particular breed of super-people she was about to jump in league with. "I don't know what a Negative Zone is, or a pocket universe. I'm just an English major with a chip on my shoulder, okay? I know I don't have a suit of armor or hands that make fireballs, or even those glowing eyes you get every now and then that just make me atwitter. And all that pales in comparison to this place, this Watchtower you've got here, and everything you've done and everything you were.

"I believed you when you told me everything about who The Sentry was. But I guess I didn't actually count on seeing it." Then at a gentle volume, with her eyes once again locked on his, and she came to the crux of the issue: "I can't compete with a dead woman."

Bob's brow furrowed.

"But I'd like to," she said at last.

He let the last part hang in the air for a moment.

Then he simply said, "Lindy's been gone a long time, Sarah." Pause. "And I have no interest in reliving the past. I have you to thank for that, and that's something I'll never be able to repay. You are an important part of my life. The important part." He stressed the 'the'.

"I understand."

"I love you, Sarah. I know it sounds like I say that every twenty seconds, but its only because its true and because its something I'm so…not used to saying. So I hope it has extra meaning for you. And I hope you feel the same way. I know this is all Greek to you, and I'm sorry for the culture shock. But it's something I wanted to show you, and…share with you."

Her face turned into a thin smile and glossy eyes. She leant in and kissed him and it was as passionate as New Years had been. The world melted away but only for a moment. They were together, and nothing they'd been up until now seemed to matter.

Everything they'd been.

She'd been stupid and reckless. Maybe he was too.

But none of that mattered now. Anymore.

"What are we gonna do with the house?"

Bob thought about it for a moment. "It'd be a shame just to sell it. I mean, we have some good memories in that place."

"True."

Innocuously, Bob said, "We could split our time between here and there. You know."

"Yeah," she said and smiled. She could live with that.

In unison, they turned so they could look out at the city, Sarah standing in front of him, his arms slung low around her waist. In the distance, streaks of pastel intercut the dark clouds, and crept up to life: dawn was coming.

Together, their eyes drifted out to look at the city and at the sunrise.

The Void was wrong. Bob wasn't alone. And he wasn't going to be.

The Void was wrong, he thought again. And again. And every time he thought about it, it got a little easier. Every time the words danced across his mind, he felt a little better.

And faced the day, for the first time, with hope.

* * *

_**The End...**_


End file.
